Abstract

After the statutory abolition in South African law of succession of claims to a legitimate portion, no person has any legal claim to a hereditary benefit from another’s estate after the latter’s death. Freedom of testation means, among other things, that every person competent to execute a valid will may do so and in the process amend or revoke any previously executed documents, provided that the requirements of execution of a will have been complied with. The fact that the testator once executed a supposedly joint and mutual will with his spouse under which the surviving spouse would be the exclusive beneficiary of the “joint estate” does not deprive any of the testators concerned of the capacity to subsequently even secretly execute a new will and, by revoking the previous will, also dispose of his assets quite differently from the erstwhile disposition indicated in the joint will. The disillusioned surviving spouse will not hold any claim against the appointed executor of the deceased’s estate founded on the law of succession.
Under the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act 27 of 1990 the surviving spouse may have a claim against the estate of the first dying spouse for future maintenance if all the requirements of the act can be met. Such a claim should be timeously lodged with the executor after the latter’s advertisement calling upon all persons having claims against the estate to lodge such claims with the executor within the advertised period for lodging (usually 30 days). However, the intention of the legislature is not that, under the guise of this claim for future maintenance, a redistribution of the testator’s assets may take place despite the latter’s express disposition. Any claim for future maintenance ranks after all other existing claims against the estate and just before the application of the norms of the law of succession that determine the distribution of the remaining assets in the estate. Section 31(b) of the Administration of Estates Act 66 of 1965 determines that if any person fails to lodge his claim against any deceased estate before the expiry of the period specified under section 29(1), he shall not be entitled in respect of his claim to demand restitution from any other claimant of any moneys paid to such other claimant at any time or before he lodged his claim, as the case may be, in pursuance of a valid claim against the estate.
In Bellingan v Bellingan ((CA110/2024) 2025 ZAECMKHC 101 (4 Dec 2025)) the court upheld the appeal against a blatantly wrong decision of the district court in Humansdorp that honoured the presumed claim of the applicant against the stepson as beneficiary in his late father’s will notwithstanding the fact that the alleged claim was not founded on any valid agreement reached between the parties. The applicant alleged that she agreed not to contest the will of the late Mr JVH Bellingan or to lodge a claim against the said estate of her late husband in exchange for certain benefits she claimed the appellant should provide for her maintenance for a limited period of five years.
Because no agreement was reached, there is no valid pactum de non petendo and in principle the respondent may be enticed to consider lodging a claim against the estate in the light of this judgment. It is submitted, however, that the chances of her succeeding with any claim for maintenance against the estate are very slim if the executor had in the meantime finalised the administration of that estate to the satisfaction of the master. Nothing in the judgment points to any timeously lodged claim founded on Act 27 of 1990 that meets the requirements of sections 29 and 31 of the Administration of Estates Act. The widow may justly be disillusioned – she trusted both that her late husband would not secretly amend his will contained in the joint document and that his son would be a gentleman – but a contested gentlemen’s agreement is seldom enforceable on its own. Although she may have had a claim for future maintenance against the estate, she waited too long to lodge that claim. The law helps the vigilant, not the slumbering or gullible.