South Australian Current Acts

ADMINISTRATION AND PROBATE ACT 1919 - SECT 72L

72L—Election by spouse or domestic partner to take dwellinghouse

        (1)         Subject to this Part, where the intestate estate of an intestate who is survived by a spouse or domestic partner includes an interest in a dwellinghouse in which the spouse or domestic partner of the intestate was residing at the date of the intestate's death, the spouse or domestic partner may elect to acquire that interest at its value as at the date of the death of the intestate.

        (2)         An election under this section must be made—

            (a)         where the spouse or domestic partner is an administrator of the intestate estate—within three months after the date on which administration of the intestate estate was granted by the Court; or

            (b)         where the spouse or domestic partner is not an administrator of the intestate estate—within three months after the administrator serves a notice personally or by post upon him requiring him to make an election under this section,

or within such extended period as the Court may allow.

        (3)         An election by a spouse or domestic partner shall be furnished in writing—

            (a)         if the spouse or domestic partner is not an administrator of the intestate estate—to the administrator; or

            (b)         if the spouse or domestic partner is an administrator of the intestate estate—to the Public Trustee.

        (4)         Where a spouse or domestic partner elects, pursuant to the provisions of this section, to acquire an interest in a dwellinghouse—

            (a)         the amount to which he is entitled out of the intestate estate shall be reduced by the value of that interest; and

            (b)         if the value of that interest exceeds the amount to which the spouse or domestic partner is entitled out of the intestate estate, the spouse or domestic partner shall, upon making the election, pay into the intestate estate the difference between that value and the value of his interest in the intestate estate.

        (5)         Where the spouse or domestic partner of an intestate is an administrator of the intestate estate, he may, notwithstanding that he is a trustee, acquire in pursuance of this section an interest in a dwellinghouse that forms part of the intestate estate.