Will Disputes: Under Pressure?
I have a number of on-going Will dispute cases where my clients are concerned that pressure was been applied on a relative when they made their Will. In legal terms, this is known as undue influence and, if proven, can allow the court to set aside a will and revert to an earlier will or an intestacy.
Take my client, Mrs Winter for example. She’s one of two sisters but, despite being close to her late mother, she discovered that after her death she had actually changed her Will shortly before she died, leaving Mrs Winter nothing. Upsetting news for any daughter so close to her mother, but what made it all the more upsetting was seeing her mother’s previous Wills which all stated she wanted to leave everything equally between her daughters.
She knew something had happened to make her late mother change her will and discovered her sister had been spending a lot more time with her mother in the weeks and months before the will was changed. She also found out her sister had been telling her mother about her own money worries and that the will had been prepared by her sisters usual solicitors, not the solicitors who prepared the earlier wills. Mrs Winter wanted to know how she would go about proving undue influence and disputing the will.
Another case of undue influence
Contesting a Will can often seem daunting. The first thing to do is to gather up as much background evidence as possible, including neighbours and other family members. Sometimes an elderly and vulnerable person can be pressurised into making a Will.
It can be an uphill struggle at times to win a case but a recent example shows it is possible to dispute a will on the grounds of undue influence: Schrader v Schrader (2013) highlights that it’s not always necessary to specifically identify a precise occasion when pressure has been applied. In that case a Will written by the deceased in 1990 left both sons an equal share of the deceased’s property. However a later Will written by the deceased in April 2006, two years before she died, gave her property to only one of the sons. Although the Court decided that the deceased understood and had all the mental capacity necessary to make a Will, they found she had been subjected to undue influence by the son who was left the property in the second Will. The Judge concluded that the son had been very close to the creation of the Will and “took advantage of her vulnerability”.
I’m making a claim on Mrs Winter’s behalf that her mother’s Will was executed under undue influence. Luckily we have a good case to show that the circumstances of the execution of the Will are inconsistent with any other view but undue influence. We’re very hopeful that she won’t have to go through the trouble of attending Court since it’s very likely her inheritance dispute will settle out of court.
If you want to contest a will you need to bring your claim as soon as possible as time limits apply and the earlier you act the better. Find out more about will disputes and how we can help.
