When Can You Contest A Will And How Do You Do It?

When we hear about people contesting a will, it’s easy to start thinking about a soap opera scenario where someone has dramatically discovered that they have been cut out at the last moment. We picture furious relatives demanding their fair share of the estate and screaming matches across the room where a stony-faced executor reads out the bombshell last will and testament from the deceased.

The reality is that a will can be contested for a wide variety of reasons, and they are not all going to come about because someone has been double-crossed or has a secret relative that they have bequeathed all their money to. Many of the most common causes for a will being contested are a lot more mundane, or a lot more concerning that someone not being deemed worthy of their chunk of the money.

Contesting a will can be the only the way to make sure that the deceased’s last wishes are actually honoured. It can be a way to ensure the right people are being looked after. It can often be necessary to right something as simple as a clerical error. In short, if you are thinking of contesting a will, you need to remember that this is a perfectly reasonable step to take, but it is also something that requires experience and expert knowledge to bring about a positive result. There is evidence to suggest that more wills and estates will be contested due to the pandemic. Here are just a few of the reasons why you should think about contesting a will.

Rectification And Construction

Let’s start with a relatively simple one. A lot of people out there are very conscientious when it comes to planning their will and the division of their estate. These are the kinds of people who have a will ready and drawn up just in case something awful and unexpected should happen to them out of the blue. On the other hand, a lot of people will leave the process of writing their will until the last possible moment. It is easy to understand why, it’s a difficult thing to think about what you want to happen next after you’re gone, after all.

But this can often result in the wording of a will being unclear. If the will has been dictated to someone who is not up to professional standard we would hope for, it can mean that they have not made the effort to fully understand what was being dictated. The latter can mean that the will has been negligently drafted, which means that you can petition for the will to be rectified. The former means that you can apply for a construction claim where you ask the court to determine what the deceased was trying to say.

Lack Of Testamentary Capacity Or Undue Influence

Following on from the point about people not writing their wills while they are in the best of health, it can be heart-breaking to realise that a relative may not have been in sound mind when they were writing their will. There are several different reasons why you might want to argue that the deceased was not of sound mind, and they include the possibility that they might not have known that they were writing a will, or what that will would be used for. They may not have fully understood the value of their estate or the nature of it (for example, an old property which may have skyrocketed in value since they last checked it).

In some cases, the deceased may not have understood the consequences of including or excluding people from their will, or they may have been suffering from an illness that would lead them to make decisions that they would not otherwise. One of the reasons why this can happen is because they may have been under the undue influence of another party. This will need to be proven and the evidence must be of a high standard. To find out more about proving undue influence and how you can contest a will, contact the team at Hugh James. Their experience and customer care makes them an invaluable asset in your legal battle.

The Will Is Fraudulent Or Has Not Been Properly Executed

A fraudulent will can refer to two different scenarios. It can refer to fraudulent action on the part of someone influencing the writing of the will, such as someone having told the deceased that someone doesn’t deserve to inherit anything because of an action they did not commit. It can also refer to someone going as far as to create a fraudulent will and putting their signature on it.

When it comes to improper execution, things can get a little more complicated. There are a series of legal requirements that must be met that cover the witnesses, testators, and executors. With fraud skyrocketing during the pandemic, we all need to be keeping an eye on these issues. If you believe that these requirements have not been met, then you will have grounds to contest the will.