This case involves the question whether there existed a sufficiently specific description of certain real property in a will so as to constitute a valid devise. The undisputed facts established that Walter Templeton, Sr. died testate in January 1982, survived by his wife and several children, including appellant and appellees. At the time of his death, testator owned an unsubdivided 60-acre tract of land comprising his residence and the family farm. Testator named appellant as the sole executor of the will and provided in Item VI that I grant appellant the right and option to purchase any or all of the real estate that I may own at the time of my death, excepting one 1 acre of land upon which my residence is located, for the sum of $650 per acre. This option may not be exercised during the lifetime of my wife, but may be exercised only for a period of six 6 months following the date of the death of my wife . . . . After testator’s wife died in 2007, appellant had the property platted and exercised his option to purchase the property under Item VI of testator’s will. He transferred to himself via an executor’s deed the 60-acre tract less a one-acre tract containing the residence. The boundaries for the one-acre tract, as drawn by appellant, severed the house from an adjacent barn and the septic system that had served the house during the testator’s lifetime. Appellees filed suit to invalidate the option and set aside the executor’s deed alleging, inter alia, that the option in Item VI lacked a clear and definite location defining the one-acre tract of land to be excepted from the property subject to the option. The trial court granted appellees’ motion for summary judgment and set aside the executor’s deed.
We affirm. In the unquestioned absence of a description of the one-acre tract with the required degree of certainty, the trial court correctly recognized that the will’s language needed to “furnish a key by which the one-acre tract may be sufficiently identified by the aid of extrinsic evidence,” Smith v. Wilkinson , 208 Ga. 489, 493 2 67 SE2d 698 1951, and, failing to do so, the devise of the property excepting that one-acre tract was void. See id. Although the will refers to a building and to a definite acreage, the will’s description “tells nothing of the configuration of the land described. It could be a square with the residence in the center or a rectangle or a circle.” Kauka Farms v. Scott , 256 Ga. 642, 644 1 352 SE2d 373 1987 discussing Laurens County Bd. of Education v. Stanley , 187 Ga. 389 200 SE 294 1938. See also Smith v. Wilkinson , supra at 494-495 deed excepting “3 acres, more or less, to be set aside as a home place containing the Wilkinson home” was unquestionably indefinite and uncertain in location and boundaries because “the excepted 3 acres, more or less, may be set aside in any shape just so it contains the Wilkinson home”. There is not even an attempt in the will to set forth the shape of the plot. Compare Kauka Farms v. Scott , supra at 644 1 deed identified central point and provided for definite acreage “surrounding,” i.e., encircling, that point.
