Inheritance advice please

woodyt

Hello there,
A friend of mine has just heard that her estranged husband has died.
He left her 30 years ago and she brought up his three children without any financial help from him.
He has left all his inheritance to the eldest child (who only kept in touch hoping that this would be the case!).
However my friend never actually divorced him despite the long time lapse.
Would she be able to contest the will as this is the case?
She's hoping that her eldest child may consider sharing some of the money with her siblings however knowing her lack of morals it's unlikely to happen.
I just feel that the hard life this poor woman has endured due to him leaving , she should have some entitlement although her main concern would be a family fallout.
Any advice please.
Thankyou

tacpot12

I think that the ex will not have much chance contesting the will, but the other siblings might. It will create problems in the family, so the best way to avoid this is to appeal to the older sibling's sense of fairness. If the other siblings have behaved badly in the eyes of the sibling who has inherited then this may be fruitless, but I can't see that anything is lost by trying this route. I know of an instance where this worked and resulted in over £100,000 being passed via a deed of variation from the wife to the children.