Contesting a Will as Next-of-Kin

jasdog

My uncle made a hospital Will and excluded several charities in favour of family . The charities are now contesting his new Will this is ongoing and as been for 16 months . If you are considering contesting the Will  you will have a very long and stressful fight on your hands the charities will not let go they have solicitors working for them who will make sure the Will remains valid . Money is of no concern to them you are very unlightly to succeed in overturning the Will. 

RomfordNavy

Spendless said:

Why did family friend arrange for a solicitor to do the will without checking with family members to see if they knew if one was already in place?

Friends were not in contact with family at the time, they knew who the family were but had no contact details.

RomfordNavy

74jax said:

I'm so sorry but I still don't understand.

In reply to my questions (thank you) you said you don't live near so it was harder).  I live no where near my mam, and neither does my brother. This was so difficult as, as mentioned, she died when we only had an hour outside allowed. We were still given LA authority to cross borders to visit (once) and to get belongings.

This didn't stop us calling the nurse, doctor, friends, social services etc to know every single thing going on. 

I think a time frame would help, you say the Will was signed 15 days before death, arranged by a friend (with no will interest), so even though you were speaking to the deseased as much as possible via mobile, no Will was mentioned and you never asked where they were.

I'm really trying to put a timeline together, as I appreciate its hard in a distressed state.

It appears the deseased was of sound mind, but, on speaking to you why wouldn't they ask for a simple thing like a charger? It's things like this you need to consider.

When taken to hospital, I'm guessing they asked for toiletries from you, how did you provide this, how did you make sure the house was secure?

Why when you spoke with the friend (I'm guessing you did for updates) was a Will not mentioned. That's quite a big topic to not tell you, especially if they had concerns.

Who is arranging the funeral?

Because we had no contact from the hospital, we didn't know which hospital they were in.  Local friends took things like toiletries but had no contact details for the family.  It is clear from  text messages etc. that the deceased believed they would be coming home.  Why not asked for a phone charger I don't know, maybe the hospice said they didn't have one but then again why not ask the friends to bring charger from home, possibly lacked mental capacity to do so by that stage.

RomfordNavy

68ComebackSpecial said:

RomfordNavy said:

Will was signed five days before leaving hospital, that was 15 days before death.

I am struggling to comprehend how the hospice could have exerted undue influence on the writing of the new will if it was drawn up and signed five days before they were transferred there. 

Which also raises the question of why someone would donate say 25% of their Estate to a hospice that they had not been to yet.

Mojisola

Didn't any of the relatives phone round the hospitals to try to find the relative?  
Or contact the relative's GP for help?

[Deleted User]

My thoughts. My SiL was the sole beneficiary of his late Mother’s Will. The Executor was a solicitor. The rest of the family had no contact with their Mother for many years. Immediately the Will was read out, in came a claim of undue pressure etc etc. The solicitor acting for the deceased was no fool and he insisted that there was a witness present when the Will was drawn up to take contemporaneous notes. My SiL was not present when Will instructions were given and when the Will was signed. The solicitor also asked the deceased to write a personal note explaining the rationale for her decision. None of this put the other family members off the pursuit of their claim.

SiL quickly realised that he needed specialist legal advice. One £2000 letter later, the other family members backed down after their ‘no win: no fee’ solicitor pulled out. My point is that if you intend to fight the Will, then you must have someone on your side who knows the law. You also need to accept that you might lose and it could prove to be very expensive - particularly, if it ends up in Court.

RomfordNavy

Mojisola said:

Didn't any of the relatives phone round the hospitals to try to find the relative?  
Or contact the relative's GP for help?

How would they have know which GP?  Not knowing the area in great detail how would you identify which hospitals to start with?  When phone contact was lost we assumed that perhaps the patient was getting better and maybe being prepared for coming home.  We assumed that if things had taken a turn for the worse we would (as next-of-kin) have received a phone call from the hospital.  After being moved to hospice it was over a week before they contacted us to let us know the patient was there.

elsien

Next of kin has no legal meaning in this country. Hospitals like a point of contact but it means nothing more than that,it does not have to be family who is nominated,  and the person is free to say they don't want anyone contacted if that is their preference. 
Being a blood relative doesn't give you any additional rights with regards to hospital contact. 

RomfordNavy

74jax said:

Who is arranging the funeral?

That is a very good question.  One would have expected next-of-kin to but funeral cannot be arranged without the permission of the executor.  In this case there is no executor as both have resigned,

Keep_pedalling

RomfordNavy said:

74jax said:

Who is arranging the funeral?

That is a very good question.  One would have expected next-of-kin to but funeral cannot be arranged without the permission of the executor.  In this case there is no executor as both have resigned,

It is the executors responsibility to make those arrangements. As has already been pointed out NOK has no legal status.