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Stroud's Judicial Dictionary 4th Edn. Vol.3 page 1907 deals with the concept of 'owner' and 'ownership' in different statutes of England.

Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th Edn., Vol. 50 at pages 95 & 96, paras 207 & 208 deals more or less in the same manner about joint will and mutual will. But at page 108, para 221 it states the law thus:

"221. Restrictions by taking a benefit under a mutual will. Mutual wills may be made, either by a joint will or by separate wills, in pursuance of an agreement that they are not to be revoked. Such an agreement may appear from the wills, or may be proved outside the wills, but it is not established by the mere fact that the wills are in identical terms. If no such agreement is shown, each party remains free to revoke his will, if there are separate wills, or to revoke the joint will, so far as it disposes of his property, and the fact that one party has died without revoking the disposition of his property does not prevent the survivor from revoking the disposition which he has made notwithstanding that he has received benefits out of the estate of the deceased party. Even when there is such an agreement and one party has died after departing from it by revoking or altering the will, the survivor having notice of the breach cannot claim to have the later will set aside, since the notice gives him the chance of altering the will as regards his own property; and the death of the deceased party is itself sufficient notice for this purpose. It, however, the deceased has stood by the agreement and not revoked or altered his will, the survivor is bound by it, and although probate will be granted of a later will made by him in breach of the agreement, since a court of probate is only concerned with the last will, the personal representatives of the survivor nevertheless hold his estate in trust to give effect to the provisions of the joint will or mutual wills."

In re Oldham, 1925 Ch. 75, the husband and wife had made mutual wills in the same form in pursuance of an agreement so as to make them but there was no evidence of any further agreement in the matter. Each gave his or her property to the other absolutely with the same alternative provisions in case of lapse. The wife having survived and accepted her husband's property under the mutual will subsequently married again, and made a fresh will ignoring the alternative provisions of her own mutual will. The plaintiff in that case contended that from the agreement to make mutual wills in the form in which they were made, the survivor who had accepted the benefit under the mutual agreements became thereby subject to alternative trusts mentioned in the mutual wills. Reliance was placed on Dufour v. Pereira (supra). Reference was made to the observations of Astbury J. in that where the learned judge observed that in order to enforce the trust, the judge must be satisfied that there was a term irrevocable and in such circumstances he was to give effect to the same. But the learned judge was unable having read the will to find any mutuality in that form in the will in question. This decision found favour with the Gujarat High Court. In the instant case before us, it has to be noted that the will in question was in one document and furthermore the desire to give properties in species to the grandsons was manifest from the entirety of the will.

It is evident from the aforesaid that property in species, in specific proportion, was intended to be preserved and enjoyed by the ultimate legatee on the death of the survivors.

In Kuppuswamy Raja v. Perumal Raja (supra), it was observed that a joint will is by a single testamentary instrument containing the wills of two or more persons and jointly executed by them, while mutual wills, are separate wills of two or more persons which are reciprocal in their provisions and executed in pursuance of contract or agreement between two or more persons to dispose of their property to each other to third person in particular mode or manner. Mutual wills as distinguished from joint wills are sometimes described as reciprocal wills. In describing a will, the adjective mutual or reciprocal is used to denote the contractual element which distinguished from a joint will. It was stated therein by the Division Bench of the Madras High Court that joint will would become irrevocable on the death of one of the testators if the survivor received benefit under the will. The Court emphasised referring into certain decisions of this court that a joint will would become irrevocable on the death of one of the testators if the survivor has received benefit under the mutual will. There need not be any specific contract prohibiting evocation when the agreement took the form of not two simultaneous mutual wills but one single document. If one single document was executed using the expression 'our property', 'our present wishes', and 'as will' and such similar expressions, it was strong cogent evidence of the intention that there was no power to revoke except by mutual consent.

In order to render mutual will irrevocable, both, according to the said decision, the conditions must be concurrently satisfied:

(a) that the surviving testator must have received benefits from the deceased under the mutual will; (b) the mutual wills should have been executed in pursuance of an agreement that the testators shall not revoke the mutual wills. Such an agreement not to revoke the wills may either appear from the wills themselves or may be proved outside the wills. This judgment was dissented from by the judgment under appeal.