Skip to content
Georgia Commons
Menu

Official Code of Georgia Annotated

Title 53. WILLS, TRUSTS, AND ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES · Chapter 4. WILLS · Article 2. TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY

53-4-11. Decided and rational desire; incapacity to contract; insanity; advanced age or eccentricity.

Active

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

  1. (a)

    Testamentary capacity exists when the testator has a decided and rational desire as to the disposition of property.#

  2. (b)

    An incapacity to contract may coexist with the capacity to make a will.#

  3. (c)

    An insane individual generally may not make a will except during a lucid interval. A monomaniac may make a will if the will is in no way connected with the monomania. In all such cases, it must appear that the will expresses the wishes of the testator unbiased by the insanity or monomania with which the testator is affected.#

  4. (d)

    Neither advancing age nor weakness of intellect nor eccentricity of habit or thought is inconsistent with the capacity to make a will.#

The notes below are printed with the section but are not enacted law (O.C.G.A. § 1-1-1(c)). They are shown apart from the text.

History

Code 1981, § 53-4-11, enacted by Ga. L. 1996, p. 504, § 10.

Cross references

Capacity of parties to enter into contracts, § 13-3-20 et seq.

Law reviews

For article, ‘‘The Georgia Law of Insanity,’’ see 3 Ga. B.J. 28 (1941). For survey article on wills, trusts, guardianships, and fiduciary administration, see 59 Mercer L. Rev. 447 (2007). For note discussing early development of rules governing capacity to make will in Georgia, see 24 Ga. B.J. 257 (1961).

Read the official page (the state's PDF, opened at the page this text was read from).

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

Text read from t52-t53-(v40)-2021-pdf.pdf, Volume V40, 2021 edition, page 341; merge action: carried; file SHA-256 062775612dfc.