Inheritance Problem- Five Seconds to Midnight

Joel Wattis looks at problems caused when clients don’t get early legal advice in an Inheritance Problem.

I am the Contentious Probate Assistant of the Inheritance Disputes Team here at Nicholson Jones Sutton. If you call up with an Inheritance problem then the chances are that you will end up speaking to me, or one of my colleagues.

This is what I do

I love helping people. I am passionate about my job. We take all sorts of calls from all nature of backgrounds: gender, age, origin…– but they all have one thing in common – they all need legal help in connection with an Inheritance Dispute.

Sometimes there are problems with the validity of a Will – the person making the Will, for example, may not have had testamentary capacity and so the Will is invalid. There may have been undue influence which forced someone to make a Will against their wishes.
Sometimes the person making a Will didn’t give proper consideration to family or dependents – so that there is an Inheritance Act Claim.

On other occasions we simply help to resolve disputes or disagreements between executors – so that the administration of an estate can be completed quickly and effectively.

A problem

Unfortunately, I have seen a common trend recently. Many potential clients leave things until the very last minute – they don’t call us to get advice as quickly as they should. This means that it can sometimes be particularly difficult to help people.
In a couple of cases recently clients only contacted us a matter of hours before they were due to be thrown out of their own homes – when otherwise they would have had a good claim to be allowed to stay there.

My advice

So here is my advice. If you have an Inheritance problem, then please call – sooner rather than later. It costs nothing to call. It’s my job to help you. If you have got a problem, then talk to me – or one of my colleagues – it’s good to talk!

We are sympathetic, understanding, and are here to help you every step of the way.

Call us on 01625 667 275 or email probate@njslaw.co.uk today to discuss your matter.

Joel Wattis