If someone is unfortunate enough to need hospital treatment, then they will often be asked who they want to be regarded as their “Next of Kin”.
A Beneficiary is someone who stands to inherit all or part of an Estate from someone who has died.
We are often contacted by people who claim that a Will is invalid because it was made as a result of “undue influence”. Equally we are often contacted by beneficiaries who claim that a will is valid – and they deny there was any undue influence. So, let’s take a look at the law.
Here at NJS Law, we have a specialist team of solicitors dealing with Inheritance Disputes of one sort or another – and against that background we tend to see all sorts of claims. Sometimes we are asked to make claims and sometimes we are asked to defend claims that have been made by others.
It is important to understand what this question means since there are two different ways to “contest” a Will after a Grant of Probate has been issued by a Probate Registry.
Disputes about the Administration of Estates are, sadly, becoming increasingly common – at any given time we will often have a number of these claims either being pursued or defended by us. Sometimes claims are genuine – but sometimes we defend claims that are brought by over greedy beneficiaries.
The lawyer’s answer is “It Depends”.
There are two basic ways to challenge a Will – the first way is to say that the last Will is invalid – for example because the parent lacked testamentary capacity to make a Will when they made it.
This is an easy question to ask – but quite a complicated question to answer
There are two types of “Contentious Probate Claim”.
An individual can make a claim on a variety of different legal grounds including…
Inheritance Disputes are in the news. Besides the regular reports of cases that have gone to trial that appear in newspapers there have recently been three television programmes about Inheritance Disputes.
If you haven’t been left as much as you expected in a will and wish to make a claim, you may consider the following steps:
If you have been left out of a will and wish to make a claim, here are some general steps to consider…
One of the most bitter and increasingly frequent Wills disputes cases we are currently seeing is that where the children of a deceased parent seek our advice after suspecting their step-parent has changed the Will they created whilst their parent was alive and disinherited them in favour of their (the step-parent’s) own biological children.
A widow whose husband of 66 years excluded her and their four daughters from his will, and left everything to their two sons, has won a high court case for a share of an estate worth more than £1m.
The recent release of Prince Harry’s autobiography, Spare, illustrates just how fractious family relationships can be. Although most families would be hard pressed to match the Windsor in both wealth and the occasional rancour towards each other, when it comes to money and inheritances, claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (Inheritance Act 1975) can demonstrate that each unhappy family is indeed “unhappy in its own way”.
One of the hardest things to go through is the loss of a loved one, and if there is a disagreement over their Will or estate, it can make things even more upsetting. In these circumstances, the legal procedure for determining how an estate should be allocated is known as contentious probate. If they died without a will – or if the will is contested in any manner – you may require the help of a solicitor to ensure that everything is managed fairly.
