A person who undertook by an irrevocable undertaking in writing to transfer as a gift, one hour before his death, his rights in a farm, breached this undertaking and sold such to a third party.
The Supreme Court held that the undertaking is void because it was not made in the framework of a will. Just as an agreement regarding the relinquishment of a person's inheritance is void, so is a gift to be made only after the death of the grantor unless it is made in the framework of a will. This is due to the purpose of the inheritance laws which come to ensure that the testator has the freedom to change his will at any time up to the date of his demise. Because a person does not know the date of his demise, the definition of the date of the gift as "one hour before my death" is determined only retroactively and therefore constitutes the granting of rights only after death, which is possible only by a will. Here, it is a person who undertook, in the framework of a document that is not a will, to grant his relatives, as a gift, his rights in the farm "one hour before my death" and then sold those rights to a third party. As it is essentially the granting of rights after death without a will, the undertaking is essentially void and the heirs are not entitled to any compensation.