Section 2-602
Property owned by the testator at death and any acquired by the testator's estate thereafter passes under the will unless a different intention appears.
Comment
Purpose and scope
This section assures that, for example, a residuary clause in a will not only passes property owned at death that is not otherwise devised, even though the property was acquired by the testator after the will was executed, but also passes property acquired by a testator's estate after his or her death. This reverses a case like Braman Estate, 435 Pa. 573, 258 A.2d 492 (1969), where the court held that Mary's residuary devise to her sister Ruth “or her estate”, which had passed to Ruth's estate where Ruth predeceased Mary by about a year, could not go to Ruth's residuary legatee. The court held that Ruth's will had no power to control the devolution of property acquired by Ruth's estate after her death; such property passed, instead, by intestate succession from Ruth. This section, applied to the Braman Estate case, would mean that the property acquired by Ruth's estate after her death would pass under her residuary clause.
The added language also makes it clear that items such as bonuses awarded to an employee after his or her death pass under his or her will.
Massachusetts comment
Under current law, property acquired by a testator after the making of his will passes under the will unless a different intention appears. G.L. c. 191, § 19. Section 2-602 would broaden the statutory language to include property acquired after the testator's death (unless the will otherwise provides). In practice, executors and administrators, c.t.a. probably assume that after acquired property is governed by the will.