Will Anti-Lapse and Substitute Gifts in Wyoming

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Covered devisees and failures

§ 2-6-106 reaches a devisee who is the testator's grandparent or a lineal descendant of a grandparent. Its three triggers are that the devisee was already dead when the will was executed, fails to survive the testator, or is treated as having predeceased the testator. A person who would have taken as a class member if alive counts even when death preceded execution.

How issue divide the substituted gift

The same section directs the deceased devisee's issue to take in that person's place. Issue at the same degree of kinship to the devisee take equally; when degrees differ, the more remote issue take per stirpes. The section gives no numbered hour or day survival period for those issue. § 2-13-103 separately addresses deaths for which there is insufficient evidence of a nonsimultaneous order, and § 2-13-102 excludes an instrument that provides a different distribution.

Failure outside the substitute rule

Under § 2-6-107, a failed nonresiduary devise joins the residue. If one of multiple residuary devisees' shares fails, it passes to the other residuary devisee or proportionally among the others. Both defaults are expressly subject to § 2-6-106, so substitution is checked first. § 2-6-105 makes the testator's expressed intention controlling over the article's construction rules.

Other instruments

§ 2-6-103 lets a will devise property to the trustee of an identified existing written trust; unless the will provides otherwise, the trust instrument governs that property. For a separate security beneficiary registration, § 2-16-111 allows terms substituting descendants and describes an LDPS designation. The statutory transfer-on-death deed form in § 2-18-104 instead calls for a choice when a grantee beneficiary predeceases the owner: void conveyance or inclusion in the beneficiary's estate.

What trips people up

A person who died before the will was signed can still be covered, including a would-be class member (§ 2-6-106). A failed residuary share does not automatically pass to the other residuary devisees when that section supplies substitute issue (§ 2-6-107).

Common questions

Must the deceased devisee be a child? No. The statute's test reaches a grandparent or a lineal descendant of one (§ 2-6-106).

Is there a 120-hour substitute-issue rule? Section 2-6-106 states no fixed survival period. The simultaneous-death rule in § 2-13-103 instead addresses insufficient evidence of who died first.

Does the will rule automatically determine a TOD security or deed? The separate registration and deed provisions address those transfers (§§ 2-16-111, 2-18-104).

Statutes and sources

• Wyo. Stat. §§ 2-6-103, 2-6-105 to 2-6-107, 2-13-102 to 2-13-103, 2-16-111 and 2-18-104. Verbatim official excerpts, the official Title 2 PDF URL, and access dates appear in the source fields above.