Peter passed away on February 17, 2015. He was a widower and had no children. In paragraph 7 of his will, Peter gave his property “to all the children of my nephew and niece.” The court had to decide whether Peter`s estate was divided between the 1st to 7th defendants in the application, who were his nieces and his nephew`s children (“the blood relatives”), and the 8th to 15th defendants, who were the children of Peter`s nieces and nephews (“the parents”). The numerical value of the daughter-in-law in Chaldean numerology is: 8 “I give my remaining possessions to all the children of my nephew and nieces who live at my death. and if one of my nephew and niece`s children does not receive a personal interest that survives me. then such an edition will take place… ». In archaic terminology, a maternal nephew is called a sister-son, emphasizing the importance of being a person`s closest male relative if he has no brothers or sons. [ref. Sister-son is used to describe some knights who are nephews of King Arthur and is imitated by J. R. R. Tolkien, especially in lists of kings of Rohan or dwarves in which the sister`s son is also heir. Sister-daughter is a less common parallel term for the niece.
“. There seems to be no doubt that the strict and correct meaning of the word “nephew” is the son of a brother or sister; And similarly, “niece” means daughter of a brother or sister. But the meaning of each of these words can, in my view, be broadened in two directions, taking into account the context and circumstances of the case. First, the word can describe the child of a brother-in-law or sister-in-law; And second, I think “nephew” is often used to indicate a niece`s husband, and “niece” is often used to describe a nephew`s wife. With his will of 10 June 1988, Peter Wendy left his estate, and if it did not survive, if his mother was alive at the time of her death, he gave John and Josephine equal £30,000.00, the contents of his house to Wendy`s niece, Carole. He also gave £3,000.00 to each of John`s children, Josephine and Roy, as well as Wendy`s nephew, Paul. He also gave £2,000.00 to each of Carole`s three sons and left the remainder of his estate to two named charities. Wendy`s will was similarly drafted and included a bequest for Roy`s children as well as John and Josephine`s children. The court`s decision focused on the interpretation of the meaning of the words “nephew” and “niece”. In Re Dauost [1944], Vaisey J.
stated: In some family cultures and traditions, it is common to designate cousins who have one or more changes in a new generation, using some form of the word niece or nephew. For more information, see cousin. For example: these terms derived from Middle English French displaced nyfte, nift, nifte, Old English nift, Proto-Germanic *niftiz (“niece”); and Middle English neve, neave, from Old English nefa, from Proto-Germanic *nefô (“nephew”). [7] [8] [9] [10] There was no external evidence to explain why Peter intended to amend his will to exclude Wendy`s entire family. Regarding the circumstances, Master Teverson said it was clear to him that in referring to “all the children of my nephew and niece,” Peter intended to include nieces and nephews by kinship and consanguinity. Master Teverson came to this conclusion for the following reasons: The word nephew is derived from the French word nephew, which is derived from the Latin nepotem. [2] The term nepotism, which means family loyalty, is derived from this Latin term. [3] Niece came in Middle English from the Old French word nece, which is also derived from the Latin nepotem. [4] The word Nibling is a neologism proposed by Samuel Martin in 1951 as an alias for “nephew or niece”; This is not common outside of the literature. [1] Sometimes in discussions with analytical material or in abstract literature, terms such as male nibble and female nibling are preferred to describe nieces and nephews respectively. [5] Terms such as nibling are also sometimes seen as a neutral alternative to terms that can be seen as a continuation of the over-sexuation of the English language. [6] Among parents, some cultures have given daughters and nieces equal social status.
This is the case, for example, in the Indian communities of Mauritius[14] and in the Thai province of Nakhon Phanom, where the transfer of cultural knowledge such as the weaving of the Tai So community,[15] and some Garifuna who transmitted languages to their nieces was divided equally among daughters, nieces and sisters-in-law. [16] In some missionary communities, the term niece has been informally expanded to include unrelated young parishioners as a form of tenderness. [17] Among some tribes in Papua New Guinea`s Manus province, women`s role as sisters, daughters, and nieces may have taken precedence over their marital status in terms of social significance. [18] Since aunt/uncle and niece/nephew are separated by two generations, they are an example of a second-degree relationship and are related to 25% when related by blood. The recent case of Wales-v-Dixon & Others has raised the interesting question of what exactly is meant by a person who leaves his estate to his “nieces and nephews”. In this particular case, the clause in that will left the testator`s estate “to all the children of my nephew and niece.” The deceased was a widower and had no children. He had two blood nephews and two blood nieces. He also had three step-nephews and one step-niece. Another step-nephew died in 1992, leaving behind a son. The deceased and his deceased wife had made mirror wills on at least three previous occasions.
These wills followed a pattern of leaving everything to each other, then first to charities and later to a named selection of nieces and nephews of both. The question arose as to whether the testator intended to bequeath his estate to the children of his nephews and nieces by blood or whether the children of nieces and nephews of his deceased wife should also be included. This issue was raised before the courts in Re Daoust (1944), where it was established that the strict and correct meaning of nephew or niece is the son or daughter of a brother or sister, but it was recognized that the strict meaning is open to expansion. It is generally accepted that the niece or nephew can describe the child of a brother-in-law or sister-in-law. Also, nephew can be used to indicate the husband and niece of a niece to describe the wife of a nephew. The starting point is that, unless the Court is required to do so because of the context or circumstances, it will always interpret a collective gift to nieces and nephews as a gift limited to the children of a brother or sister. In Wales-v-Dixon & Others, it was confirmed that the context of a case is not limited to the other provisions of the will, but also to the history of previous wills, previous wills of a spouse and what happened to the estate of a spouse. On this basis, it was decided that the testator wanted to benefit not only his own blood relatives, but also the parents of his deceased wife, and the estate was administered accordingly. Any lawyer preparing your will should always ask you many questions about your family and property. At DMH Stallard, we have a rigorous process in place to ensure your will and wishes are clear so that your executors can manage your estate quickly and efficiently.
If you are thinking about drafting your will or are unsure about the clarity of your current will, please contact Jennifer Charlton, who will be happy to assist you. In the linear kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject`s brother or sister-in-law. The opposite relationship, the relationship from the point of view of the niece or nephew, is that of an aunt or uncle. A niece is a woman and a nephew is a man. The term nibling has been used in some publications instead of common gender-specific terms. [1] This, according to Master Teverson, illustrated the dangers of receiving telephone instructions from an elderly widower without seeing his previous will or knowing his pedigree. He also stated that he considered paragraph 7 to be poorly formulated. It contained grammatical and punctuation errors, as well as the failure to identify the intended recipients of the gift by name or through parents or family.