Blog
Welcome To Tips To Challenge A Will
You spend your life striving to earn your fortune through hard work and dedication. It would be a nightmare for you if all your hard earned wealth goes into the wrong hands after you die, which would then leave your next of kin left on their own to survive. To prevent such disaster from happening, you should make a Will, which is a legal document ensuring your control over your estate and wealth even after you die.
Through a Will you state how your estate would be distributed amongst your inheritors after your demise. This will then prevent them from quarrelling amongst each other to lay their hands on your entire estate. A Will, thus sounds as the best way to avoid family problems after anyone’s death, but then there are times when the distribution done on the basis of a Will may seem to be unjust or unsatisfactory. The decisions taken may look unlike the kind of decision the deceased person would have taken if they were alive. Thus during such instances, the authenticity of the Will can be challenged in the court of Law. Let us take a further note of how the entire process of challenging a Will in the court works.
To challenge a Will you must be prepared to invest a lot of your time and money for it as it is a very complex process which also involves you to seek effective legal advice. Contesting a Will without any legal advice or knowledge can prove to be very costly to you and may even make your case weak, there by not granting you the desired results. Contesting a Will can also take an emotional toll on you as you get involved in quarrelling and arguing with your own family members and friends while you are trying to cope up with the loss of your loved one at the very same time. Therefore it is always advisable to hire a solicitor to do your work as they have the expertise in this field and their involvement in your struggle can soothe your efforts.
In order to contest a will, there needs to be valid legal grounds to do so. We look at these below.
, A Will is considered to lack validity or due execution if it fails to meet one or more of the following criteria.
However, emotional appeals made to the testator to gain some share in their estate cannot be considered to be undue influence and so it further more complicates the case.
The reports of assessment of the testator’s mental health given by medical or psychiatric authorities make up for these evidences. Evidences given by other witnesses who were with the testator while making the Will and other medical reports of the testator, also play a vital role during the proceedings. Ultimately, all the evidence needs to show is that the testator was suffering from a condition which would have affected them when making their Will, such as a long term degenerative illness, or drug or alcohol consumption. If it can be proven that this condition led to the testator producing a Will which was different from the one they would have produced if they would have been of sound mind then contesting the Will is likely to be successful.
But there are times wherein the testator does not lack testamentary capacity, but at the same time also don’t have full knowledge of the content of the Will due to certain shortcomings such as, they being,
This can be grounds for contesting a Will if it has resulted in you suffering a loss as a potential beneficiary. If such is the case, then you can apply to the court for the Will to be changed (rectification) within six months of the date of the grant of probate, under section 20 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982. This then allows the court to rectify the Will but it is done only if the court is satisfied with clear evidence proving a typographical or clerical error in the Will or an evidence proving that there has been a clear failure of the Will drafter to understand the testator’s instructions. The Will can also be contested in the court if it contains ambiguous words whose meaning the court has to then decide. Such a case would then be called as a construction case. Construction case may also be lodged if the words in the Will are unclear, under which the court is again entitled to do the duty of recognising and stating the proper meaning of the Will and of those unclear words.
Death bed Wills can be a particular source of friction if the testator had recently remarried or has children from a previous marriage or was in a relationship with a much younger partner. The fact that a Will was made shortly before the testator passed away is not a proper ground for contesting a Will, but you may be able to contest it on the grounds of undue influence or lack of testamentary capacity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |