In re Estate of Craigen, 305 S.W.3d 825 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 2010, no pet.).
Testator’s holographic will provides that his wife is to “get[]
everything till she dies” but later in the will he leaves his wife “all
[] real & personal property.” Both the trial and appellate court
determined that the will was ambiguous. Although there was no extrinsic
evidence of Testator’s intent, the courts applied standard
interpretation rules to conclude that Testator intended to leave his
wife all his property outright and not just a life estate.
The court based its conclusion on a variety of factors including (1) the
will was drafted by a lay individual and thus terms are given their
popular, rather than technical, meaning so that “till she dies” does not
create a life estate but merely states the obvious, that a person may
only use property while alive, (2) if the will granted his wife a life
estate, the remainder would pass via intestacy and wills are interpreted
to avoid intestacy, (3) Texas law favors the early vesting of interests,
and (4) the will was ambiguous as Testator referred to his wife by using
two different first names.
Moral: Wills should be drafted by lawyers with estate planning expertise
to prevent this type of problem.
Note: The court also could have used the construction rule that if two
provisions of a will conflict, the latter provision controls.