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. If the will is very different from an earlier will that the person made, you may want to look at what was happening when they made the new will.
Here are some of the main reasons a court might decide a will is not valid.
Mental capacity
A will might not be valid if you can show that the person was not of understanding what making a will means. 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
A will might not be valid if you can show the person signed it because of too much pressure from a family member or some other person. For example, if they were forced to sign the will or to give a bigger share of their estate to one person instead of another. This is sometimes called “undue influence”.
Will does not follow rules
A will might not be valid if the person who made it did not follow the rules for making a will. For example, a formal will is not valid unless all of the following is true:
- The will is signed in front of 2 witnesses.
- Each signed the will in front of the person who made the will and the other witness.
- The witnesses and their partners are not left any property in the will.
One of the witnesses should have also signed an . This is a document that confirms that the person who made the will signed it in front of both of the witnesses, who also signed the will.
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
A will might not be valid if you can show that someone tricked or misled the person into leaving money or property to them or someone else. For example, they might do this by giving the person information that was not true or showing them 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
