3. Think about challenging the will

If a court decides that your loved one's will is not valid, then the is distributed based on the .

How you decide to challenge a will depends on the situation. For example, the person might have made a new will that's very different from an earlier one. In this situation, you might want to look at what was happening when they made the new will to see why it's so different.

Here are some of the main reasons a court might decide a will is not valid.

Mental capacity

The person was not of understanding what making a will means when they made it. For example, the person did not understand:

that they were writing and signing their will
what property they had
the type of relationships they had with people named in the will

Too much pressure

The person signed the will because of too much pressure from a family member or some other person. This is sometimes called “undue influence”.

Will does not follow the rules

The person did not follow the rules for making a will. The rules that make a will valid, depend on how the will was made.

But, even if the person who made the will did not follow the rules, a court might decide that the will is valid. This might happen if the court believes that the will still expresses what the person really wanted.

Person was tricked

The person was tricked or misled into leaving property to a family member or some other person. They did this, for example, because they were given false information or were shown fake documents or documents with forged signatures.

Wording not clear

You might want to ask a court to decide what a will means if:

the wording in the will is not clear, or
you think that the does not understand the will correctly.