Read 1st time February 9, 2000, and 1000 copies ordered printed.
ANNE C. WALKER, Chief Clerk
AN ACT
To repeal sections 474.020 and 474.420, RSMo 1994, relating to intestate succession and wills, and to enact in lieu thereof two new sections relating to the same subject.
Section A. Sections 474.020 and 474.420, RSMo 1994, are repealed and two new sections enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as sections 474.020 and 474.420, to read as follows:
474.020. [When several lineal descendants, all of equal degree of consanguinity to the intestate, or his father, mother, brothers and sisters, or his grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles and aunts, or any ancestor living and their children, come into partition, they shall take per capita, that is, by persons; where a part of them are dead, and part living, and the issue of those dead have a right to partition, such issue shall take per stirpes; that is, the share of the deceased parent.] Property shall be divided into as many equal shares as there are surviving descendants in the generation nearest to the decedent which contains one or more surviving descendants and deceased descendants in the same generation who left surviving descendants, if any. Each surviving descendant in the nearest generation shall be allocated one share. The remaining shares, if any, shall be combined and divided in the same manner among the surviving descendants of the deceased descendants as if the surviving descendants who were allocated a share and their surviving descendants had predeceased the decedent.
474.420. 1. If after making a will the [testator is divorced] testator's marriage is dissolved or annulled, all provisions in the will in favor of the testator's former spouse [so divorced] are thereby revoked but the effect of the revocation shall be the same as if the [divorced spouse] former spouse or relatives of the former spouse had died at the time of the divorce. With this exception, no written will, nor any part thereof, can be revoked by any change in the circumstances or condition of the testator.
2. As used in this section, "relatives of the former spouse" means individuals who are related to the former
spouse by blood, adoption or affinity and who, after the dissolution or annulment, are not related to the testator
by blood, adoption or affinity.
Missouri House of Representatives