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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for rehearing under Rule 22 as well as formal revision before publication in the New Hampshire Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter, Supreme Court of New Hampshire, One Charles Doe Drive, Concord, New Hampshire 03301, of any editorial errors in order that corrections may be made before the opinion goes to press. Errors may be reported by E-mail at the following address: reporter@courts.state.nh.us. Opinions are available on the Internet by 9:00 a.m. on the morning of their release. The direct address of the court's home page is: http://www.courts.state.nh.us/supreme. THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE ___________________________ Hillsborough County Probate Court No. 2006-441 IN RE ESTATE OF ROBERT LAWRENCE SHAREK Argued: March 15, 2007 Opinion Issued: August 22, 2007 Vincent A. Wenners, Jr., of Manchester, by brief and orally, for the appellant. Dow's Law Office, P.A., of Norway, Maine (Edward L. Dilworth, III on the brief and orally), for the appellee. HICKS, J. The appellant, M. Georgette Sharek, the former wife of the decedent, Robert Lawrence Sharek, and the named executrix in his will, appeals a decision of the Hillsborough County Probate Court (Patten, J.) applying RSA 551:13, II (2007) to revoke her interest under the decedent's will. We affirm. The trial court found the following facts. The appellant and the decedent were married on July 1, 1963, and divorced on April 20, 1983. They had no children. The decedent's will was executed on August 24, 1982, and left, after payment of debts, taxes and expenses, the remainder of his estate to the appellant if she survived him. If the appellant were to predecease the decedent, the will provided for two specific bequests and then left the remainder of the estate to the appellant's parents if they survived the decedent. They did not survive him. Following another series of specific bequests, the provision of the

will here at issue left the remainder of the decedent's estate to his brother-inlaw, Raymond J. LaPlante, the appellee in this case. In 1998, the legislature enacted RSA 551:13, II, see Laws 1998, 127:1, which currently provides, in pertinent part: If after executing a will the testator is divorced or the marriage is annulled, the divorce or annulment revokes any disposition or appointment of property made by the will to the former spouse, any provision conferring a general or special power of appointment on the former spouse, and any nomination of the former spouse as executor, trustee, conservator, or guardian, unless the will expressly provides otherwise. Property prevented from passing to a former spouse because of revocation by divorce or annulment passes as if the former spouse and all heirs in the descending line of such former spouse who are not also heirs at law of the decedent failed to survive the decedent, and other provisions conferring some power or office on the former spouse are interpreted as if the spouse and all heirs in the descending line of such former spouse who are not also heirs at law of the decedent failed to survive the decedent. The statute, in substantial part, tracks the language of Section 2-508 of the Uniform Probate Code. Unif. Prob. Code

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