In most European legal systems, drafting a will is subject to formal requirements. In the same way, most European legal systems prescribe formal requirements for the revocation of a will. However, Swedish law is unique in this respect as it does not prescribe formal requirements for the revocation of a will. For the revocation of a will, Swedish law only requires that the testator has unequivocally announced that the disposition no longer expresses his ultimate will. This is stated in the 5th Section of the 10th Chapter of the Swedish Inheritance Code. Under Swedish law, it is therefore only a question of proof whether the testator has revoked his will. However, it may be difficult to assess whether the testator has intended to revoke his will when the testator is alleged to have revoked his will informally. Therefore, the main purpose of this thesis is to examine how the assessment of whether the testator has intended to revoke his will is carried out under current Swedish law. To achieve the purpose of this thesis, a traditional legal dogmatic method is used. This means that the material used is limited to the traditional Swedish sources of law. These are legislation, preparatory works, case law and Swedish legal doctrine. Since Swedish law does not prescribe any formal requirements for revoking a will, a will can be revoked in an unlimited number of ways. It has therefore been necessary to limit the scope of this thesis to the most common ways of revoking a will. For this reason, this thesis only covers the revocation of a will by executing a new will, by physical destruction of a will, by strikeouts and inscriptions on the will, by oral statements made by the testator and by the revocation of a previously revoked will. Consequently, other ways of revoking a will are not closer analysed. The analysis shows that no general conclusions can be drawn on how to assess whether the testator intended to revoke his will. Instead, the assessment depends on the way in which the testator is alleged to have revoked his will. However, the analysis also shows that some more specific conclusions can be drawn. It can be concluded from Swedish case-law that a high standard of proof is required for a revocation allegedly made by an informal measure. However, this does not apply if the will has been destructed. In such cases, there is instead a presumption that the will has been destructed by the testator with the purpose of revoking the will. Consequently, the burden of proof is reversed when the will has been destructed. The analysis also shows that it often can be uncertain whether the testator has intended to revoke his will by an informal measure. This is because there may be no reliable evidence of the testator’s intention in such cases. Therefore, the con-clusion is that a testator who wishes to revoke his will should do so by executing a new will which expressly states that the will is revoked. By doing so, the testator significantly reduces the risk of future disputes concerning the validity of the will.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-219105 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Steen, Johan |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Juridiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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