The Bates Blog
Will Disputes - the Nightmare Scenario.
04/10/11Have you ever thought about what would happen if your Will were contested?
Many people think that Wills are watertight documents which will always be followed to the letter. If only that were so, our job as lawyers would be much simpler. Sadly, despite our best efforts, it doesn’t always work like that.
No solicitor can ever give a cast-iron guarantee that a will he or she has drafted will be upheld by the courts if it is challenged. But there are things we can do to make a challenge less likely.
Challenges to wills often focus on the mental capacity of the person who made the Will at the time he or she signed it. So we will sometimes recommend to clients that a Doctor should give a written report on their capacity before they sign their Wills. It is much better to have this evidence ready, just in case it is ever needed, than to try and reconstruct it after the client is dead and gone!
More, please!
Another increasingly common problem is the beneficiary who gets less than he or she was expecting, or even nothing at all. The law says that some types of people (including widows and widowers, but also grown-up children) can ask the court to consider making extra provision for them from an estate if they can show that they need it. There is no sure-fire way to prevent such a claim being made, but again there are steps your lawyer can take which could make it easier to defend the claim.
Whose Will is it anyway?
Some people are shocked by the idea that the wishes they have put down in black and white might be disregarded after their death. Some even ask what the point of making a Will is, if it can be overturned by a judge? The thing to remember, though, is that challenges to Wills are very rare (and successful challenges even rarer). And the one thing you can be sure of is that, if you don’t make a Will, your wishes will be ignored - because no-one will know what they were!