House Bill 624

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTIONS 91-5-1 AND 91-5-3, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO CLARIFY THAT THE LAST WISHES OF A TESTATOR OR TESTATRIX SHALL BE HONORED; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. Section 91-5-1, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

91-5-1. Every person eighteen (18) years of age or older, being of sound and disposing mind, shall have power, by last will and testament, or codicil in writing, to devise all the estate, right, title and interest in possession, reversion, or remainder, which he or she hath, or at the time of his or her death shall have, of, in, or to lands, tenements, hereditaments, or annuities, or rents charged upon or issuing out of them, or goods and chattels, and personal estate of any description whatever, provided such last will and testament, or codicil, be signed by the testator or testatrix, or by some other person in his or her presence and by his or her express direction. Moreover, if not wholly written and subscribed by himself or herself, it shall be attested by two (2) or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator or testatrix. All surviving family members shall honor the last will and testament of the testator or testatrix, provided that such last will and testament is properly executed.

SECTION 2. Section 91-5-3, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

91-5-3. A devise so made, or any clause thereof, shall not be revocable but by the testator or testatrix destroying, canceling, or obliterating the same, or causing it to be done in his or her presence, or by subsequent will, codicil, or declaration, in writing, made and executed and the surviving family members of the testator or testatrix shall honor the last action of the testator or testatrix, provided that such last action is properly executed. Every last will and testament made when the testator or testatrix had no child living, wherein any child he or she might have is not provided for or not mentioned, if at the time of his or her death he or she have a child, or if the testator leave his wife enceinte of a child who shall be born, shall have no effect during the life of any such after-born child and shall be void unless the child die without having been married, or without leaving issue capable of inheriting, and before he or she shall have attained twenty-one years. The estate, both real and personal, so devised shall descend to such child in the same manner as if the testator or testatrix had died intestate, subject, nevertheless, to the bequests made in the last will and testament in case of the death of such child before marriage, or without issue capable of inheriting, and under the age of twenty-one (21) years. When a testator shall leave children born and his wife enceinte, the posthumous child or children, if unprovided for by settlement and neither provided for nor disinherited, but only pretermitted, by the last will and testament, shall succeed to the same portion of the father's estate as such child or children would have been entitled to if the father had died intestate, towards raising which portion the devisees and legatees shall contribute proportionably out of the parts devised and bequeathed to them by the same will and testament.

SECTION 3. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2003.