Section 9 Effect of marriage, divorce or annulment - Massachusetts Statutes

[Text of section effective until July 1, 2011. Repealed by 2008, 521, Sec. 10. See 2008, 521, Sec. 44.]

Section 9. The marriage of a person shall act as a revocation of a will made by him previous to such marriage, unless it appears from the will that it was made in contemplation thereof. If the will is made in the exercise of a power of appointment and the real and personal property subject to the appointment would not, without the appointment, pass to the persons who would have been entitled to it if it had been the estate and property of the testator making the appointment and he had died intestate, so much of the will as makes the appointment shall not be revoked by the marriage.

If, after executing a will, the testator shall be divorced or his marriage shall be annulled, the divorce or annulment shall revoke any disposition or appointment of property made by the will to the former spouse, any provision conferring a general or special power of appointment on the former spouse, and any nomination of the former spouse, as executor, trustee, conservator or guardian, unless the will shall expressly provide otherwise. Property prevented from passing to a former spouse because of revocation by divorce shall pass as if a former spouse had failed to survive the decedent, and other provisions conferring a power or office on the former spouse shall be interpreted as if the spouse had failed to survive the decedent. If provisions shall be revoked solely by this section, they shall be revived by the testator’s remarriage to the former spouse. A decree of separation which does not terminate the status of husband and wife is not a divorce for the purpose of this section.

This section shall not apply to a will made under the provisions of chapter one hundred and ninety-one B unless the will otherwise provides.