Contemplation-of-marriage statute citation on estate#

Revision note (v0.2): the original v0.1 proposal sketched a full estate.contemplationOfMarriage block with intendedSpousePersonId, intendedMarriageDate, and statuteRelied. While drafting the talk demo fixtures we discovered v3 already supports the linkage half via estate.mirrorWillId, estate.companionEstateId, and estate.companionLinkStatus. The proposal is now narrowed to just the statute citation that explicitly invokes the s.18(3)/s.13 exception.

Context#

A will made before marriage is automatically revoked by that marriage in many common-law jurisdictions:

• England & Wales — Wills Act 1837 s.18
• Singapore (non-Muslim testators) — Wills Act (Cap 352) s.13
• (others — see the marriageRevocation property added to the uk-england-wales, singapore-malaysia and uae extensions in v6.5.0)

Both s.18 and s.13 carry a critical exception: a will made in expectation of a particular marriage survives that marriage, provided the will expressly identifies the intended spouse (E&W: s.18(3)–(4); SG: s.13 proviso).

What v3 already covers#

INHERIT v3 (as of v6.5.0) ships these existing estate properties that together model the linkage between two mirror wills written ahead of a marriage:

These four pointers + two flags are enough to represent the structural fact that a pair of mirror wills exist and that they revoke their pre-marriage predecessors. Audience tooling can resolve everything from these IDs.

What’s still missing#

What v3 cannot express is which statute the will is relying on to claim the contemplation-of-marriage exception. The s.18(3) E&W and s.13 proviso SG rules both require the will to identify the intended spouse — and case law in both jurisdictions has grown around what “in contemplation of” formally means. A machine-readable claim would let:

• Probate registries auto-flag a non-compliant claim.
• Cross-jurisdictional planning tools warn when a will cites one jurisdiction’s statute but the testator’s domicile at marriage is another.
• The standard match the precision it already gives to marriageRevocation on the extension side.

Proposed shape (revised, narrower)#

A single optional string property on estate:

"estate": {
  "contemplationOfMarriageStatute": "Wills Act 1837 s.18(3)"
}

• Free-text statute citation. String, max 255 chars.
• Implementations may parse it; the standard does not impose a structure.
• Used in conjunction with estate.mirrorWillId / companionEstateId / revokesDocumentIds (which already exist in v3) to represent the full contemplation-of-marriage scenario.

Backwards-compatible: opt-in single string field. No structure changes.

Worked example#

The INHERIT Companion talk demo uses two mirror wills written in contemplation of marriage: see mark-mirror.json and katrina-mirror.json at openinherit.org/talk/companion . Each fixture uses v3-native mirrorWillId, companionEstateId, companionLinkStatus: "active", revokesDocumentIds, and revocationClause: true. The contemplation narrative currently lives in the freeform estate.notes field because the proposed contemplationOfMarriageStatute field doesn’t exist yet. Once the proposal lands, the notes will tighten into the structured field.

Open questions#

• Should contemplationOfMarriageStatute be a structured citation (act + section
  • subsection + jurisdiction) or remain a plain string? Plain string for v0.2; could promote to structured later if tooling demand emerges.
• Should the field only validate when the testator’s domicile is in a jurisdiction whose marriageRevocation rule has revokesPriorWill: true? Constraint adds complexity but prevents nonsensical claims (e.g. a Scots will citing s.18(3) when Scots law doesn’t auto-revoke wills on marriage).
• Some jurisdictions allow a will to be made in contemplation of any future marriage of the testator (Australia ACT — Wills Act 1968 s.20A). Worth a parallel contemplatesAnyMarriage boolean? Or out of scope?

Status#

Draft v0.2 (narrowed from v0.1 after v3 introspection). RFC after the APIdays Singapore 2026 talk (2026-04-15). Tracked at openinherit/standard#40 ↗ .