Contesting a will....

Zulu

I recently was in a conversation about a will, and someone contesting it. And it all seemed a bit crazy to me, but I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Say someone dies leaving a proper will (no mental issues or coercion or similar outliers). Just a standard straight up will.

They have no children, and in their will they leave everything to a nephew.

Can there be grounds for someone to contest that will, say a niece?

I would have thought that a will is a will, and you'd be whistling in the wind. No? Or is it more complex/nuanced than that.

coylemj

In your hypothetical case with just nieces and nephews and no scope for a challenge based on mental capacity or coercion, there is no case to answer. The deceased could have left everything to the cats and dogs home and nobody would have had a case to contest the will.

Beyond a spouse (who has a minimum entitlement always) and children (in certain situations), nobody else has any entitlement.

Donald Trump

coylemj wrote: »

In your hypothetical case with just nieces and nephews and no scope for a challenge based on mental capacity or coercion, there is no case to answer. The deceased could have left everything to the cats and dogs home and nobody would have had a case to contest the will.

Beyond a spouse (who has a minimum entitlement always) and children (in certain situations), nobody else has any entitlement.

Nobody else has any statutory entitlement.

I'd imagine though that there could be cases where people "feel" entitled, whether genuine or not.

As in perhaps they did something under the promise of being left something in the will and they can prove it? Would that not be a case?

Gangu

Donald Trump wrote: »

Nobody else has any statutory entitlement.

I'd imagine though that there could be cases where people "feel" entitled, whether genuine or not.

As in perhaps they did something under the promise of being left something in the will and they can prove it? Would that not be a case?

They can feel that, but the will is the last word.

Donald Trump

Gangu wrote: »

They can feel that, but the will is the last word.

In most cases - yes.

In all cases - no

Suppose you had a nephew who moved in a took care of his bachelor uncle farmer who could no longer work his farm. The nephew works for little to no wages for 25 years. The agreement is that the nephew will inherit the farm.

A week before the bachelor farmer dies, they have a row and the farmer changes his will to leave it to his other nephew who emigrated to Australia 50 years previously.

in that case, the nephew who stayed and worked the land can contest the will. Probably successfully too.

Peregrinus

Basically, where there are no spouse or children involved, to have even the ghost of a challenge you'd need to prove the existence of a contract in which the testator committed to make certain provision in his will. That would require some fairly striking and unusual facts, and the OP contains no hint of anything of the kind. So, on the scenario outlines in the OP, there is no sign of anything that might support a challenge.

Zulu

Yeah no crazy outliers, other than an "expectation".
Pretty much exactly as I felt, but thanks for confirming folks

Claw Hammer

the following link has some comment on these situations. they are utterly exceptional.
https://pjf.ie/what-we-do/wills-probate/inheritance-disputes/relying-on-a-promise-of-inheritance/