Author: Edward Bragiel (2002)

In recent years the court has examined on several occasions the agreements that give rise to
mutual wills. Edward Bragiel looks at Healey v Brown and asks if the court reached the
right result. If it did, there is a significant new pitfall in the preparation of such wills
(taken from Issue No 21  – October 2002

Introduction
The term `mutual wills` is properly used to describe the situation where two people (T1 and T2) make a binding agreement whereby each undertakes to make their last will in the same form leaving property to particular beneficiaries. The most common situation is where T1 and T2 agree to make wills leaving their property to the other, if the other survives, and in default o a beneficiary (B) but it is not essential that the surviving testator (T2) should receive property under the will of the first testator to die (T1)¹. If T1 dies without having altered or revoked his will he has performed his part of the bargain and this creates an obligation on the part of T2 that he too will adhere to the agreement.