SSI
Notices in nature of citations.
Procedure
in suits for probate or administration. Custody of original wills.
Official copies and certificates.
Half-yearly returns from
Provincial to Supreme Court.
Interpretation
Officer."
48
After such a notice has been filed in a Provincial Court, or after a copy of such a notice has been received by a Provincial Court (as the case may be), the Provincial Court shall not make a grant of probate or administration, but any grant shall be made only by the Supreme Court, under the immediate direction of the Judge.
198. Notices in the nature of citations shall be given by pub- lication in such newspapers, or in such other manner as the Court, in each case, directs.
199. Suits respecting probate or administration shall be in- stituted and conducted as nearly as may be in the same manner as suits for claims of 100 dollars and upwards.
200. All original wills, of which probate or administration with will annexed is granted, shall be filed and kept in the public office of the Supreme or other Court from which the grant issues, in such manner as to secure at once the due preservation and the convenient inspection of the same; and no original will shall be delivered out for any purpose without the express and special. direction in writing of the Judge of the Supreme Court.
An official copy of the whole or of any part of a will, or an official certificate of a grant of administration, may be obtained from the Supreme or other Court where the will has been proved or the administration granted, on payment of the proper
fees.
201. On the first day of February and the first day of August Court, in every year, every Provincial Court shall send to the Supreme
A list (Form 30.) of the grants of probate and administration made by it up to the last preceding first day of January and first day of July respectively, and not included in any previous list:
And also, a copy, certified by the Provincial Court to be a correct copy, of every will to which any such probate or admini- stration relates.
11.-PROBATE AND ADMINISTRATION WITH WILL ANNEXED. 202. In the following rules respecting probate and admini- of "the proper stration the expression "the proper Officer" means, as to the provinces, the Consul-General, Consul, or Vice-Consul holding and forming a Court;-as to the Supreme Court, such one of the officers attached thereto, as for the time being acts in matters of probate and administration by the authority and under the direction of the Judge.
Examination
of will as to mode of exe-
cution.
203. On receiving an application for probate or for admini- stration with will annexed, the proper officer must inspect the will, and see whether it appears to be signed by the testator or
>
49
by some other person in his presence and by his direction, and subscribed by two witnesses, according to the provisions of the Acts of Parliament 7 Will. 4. & 1 Vict. e. 26. sect. 9,* and 15 & 16 Viet. c. 24. sect. 1,f and in no case may he proceed further if the will does not appear to be so signed and sub- scribed.
204. If the will appears to be signed by or for the testator Examination and subscribed by two witnesses, the officer must then refer to of attestation
the attestation clause (if any), and consider whether the wording clause.
thereof shows the will to have been in fact executed in accord- ance with the provisions of the said Acts.
205. If there is no attestation clause to the will, or if the Proof of attestation clause thereto is insufficient,--the officer must re- execution quire an affidavit (Form 9.) from at least one of the subscribing Acts of Far- according to witnesses, if either of them is living, to prove that the will was in liament. fact executed in accordance with the provisions of the said Acts. The affidavit must be engrossed and form part of the probate, so that the probate may be a complete document on the face of it.
**And be it further enacted, that no will shall be valid unless it shall be in writing and executed in manner herein-after mentioned; (that is to say,) it shall be signed at the foot or end thereof by the testator or by some other person in his presence and by his direction; and such signature shall be made or acknowledged by the testator in the presence of two or more witnesses present at the same time, and such witnesses shall attest and shall subscribe the will in the presence of the testator, but no form of attestation shall be necessary,”
"Where by an Act passed in the first year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, intituled, 'An Act for the Amendment of the Laws with respect to Wills,' it is enacted, that no will shall be valid unless it shall be signed at the foot or end thereof by the testator, or by some other person in his presence, and by his direc- tion: Every will shall, so far only as regards the position of the signature of the testator, or of the person signing for him as aforesaid, be deemed to be valid within the said enactment, as explained by this Act, if the signature shall be so placed at or after, or following, or under, or beside, or opposite to the end of the will, that it shall be apparent on the face of the will that the testator intended to give effect by such his signature to the writing signed as his will, and that no such will shall be affected by the circumstance that the signature shall not follow or be immediately after the foot or end of the will, or by the circumstance that a blank space shall intervene between the concluding word of the will and the signature, or by the circumstance that the signature shall be placed among the words of the testimonium clause or of the clause of attestation, or shall follow or be after or under the clause of attestation, either with or without a blank space intervening, or shall follow or be after or under or beside the names or one of the names of the subscribing wit- nesses, or by the circumstance that the signature shall be on a side or page or other portion of the paper or papers containing the will whereon no clause or paragraph or disposing part of the will shall be written above the signature, or by the cir cumstance that there shall appear to be sufficient space on or at the bottom of the preceding side or page or other portion of the same paper on which the will is written to contain the signature; and the enumeration of the above circumstances shall not restrict the generality of the above enactment; but no signature under the said Act or this Act shall be operative to give effect to any disposition or direction which is underneath or which follows it, nor shall it give effect to any disposition or direction inserted after the signature shall be made."
11351.
D
123