MANUFACTURER'S WILL

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 83, 5 October 1931, Page 8

MANUFACTURER'S WILL

COURT'S INTERPRETATION

A SUBSTANTIAL ESTATE

Acting as executor of the estate of the late Charles Cathie, clothing manufacturer, of Wellington, the Guardian Trust and Executors Company of New Zealand, Ltd., made an application in the- Supreme Court several weeks ago for an order construing the will and codicil of the deceased and determining a number of questions arising, out of the will and codicil. The application was heard by Mr. Justice Blair, who gave his reserved written, judgment today. The late Mr. Cathie left a very substantial estate. His family comprised a widow and eleven children. Everyone 6f the children at some time or other in his or her lifetime received gifts or advances totalling several thousands of pounds from the testator. * On Ist October, 1929, subsequent to the making by him of all the gifts or advances to Jiis children (except one gift of £100), Mr. Cathie made a codicil to his will altering the scheme of distribution of his estate. By this codicil he revoked three other codicils he had made, and, after having made provision for bequests to his children, he left, among other charitable bequests, one-eleventh share of his residuary estate to the Sudan United Mission, and three-eleventh • shares to the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society for work in India. These two organisations were joined as defendants with the testator's children. Six questions were submitted for consideration. Two his Honour did not deem it, necessary to answer; the remaining questions, with his Honour's answers, are as follows:— (1) Whether the £100 gifts to each daughter are destroyed, by the testator's gifts to his daughters?— Yes. (2) Whether the gift in the codicil of £3500 to each child is destructive of the legacy of £100 to each daughter as provided by the will?— No. (3) Whether the "hotchpot" clause in the will is operative for the benefit of the charities mentioned in the codicil?— The gift of £3500 to each of the children of the testator is irrespective of any gifts or advances made by the testator in his lifetime, but this answer has no application to any loans (if any) made by the testator to his children. (6) Whether the devise and bequest in favour of the testator's widow and the bequests in favour of testator's children, or any of them, are free of estate and succession duties?—"No," except insofar as a. certain reported case applies to the widow. His Honour ordered that the costs of all parties should be taxed and paid out of the residuary estate.