Will being contested

GDB2222 · 11 August at 7:39PM

Keep_pedalling said:

Flugelhorn said:

Baldytyke88 said:

Probate is a legal process that grants someone (usually an executor, named in a will) the authority to manage a deceased person's estate, including their assets and debts. It involves validating the will, if there is one, and ensuring the estate is distributed according to its instructions or, if there is no will, according to the law.

Is this a serious thread, because it's not believable.

Surely no will writer would have made this mistake.. would they?

As any fool can set up as a will writer it is certainly possible.

They may have set up as a limited company, without any liability insurance. Even if not, they may not have enough assets to be worth suing them.

poseidon1 · 11 August at 7:43PM

Voyager2002 said:

Yes: a will should be witnessed by someone who is not a beneficiary. You can probably seek redress against the will-writer for making such an elementary blunder.

Your siblings would indeed be able to bring some action to contest the will. Probably they would lose, but the costs to both sides could amount to thousands.

Wills Act is clear, if witnessed by a spouse of beneficary, that beneficiary is excluded from benefit and ordinarily the will remains valid but for the excluded beneficiary.

However, since the beneficiary is the sole beneficiary, and there is no one else the bequest can apply under the express terms of the Will, the will fails for lack of beneficary object. In which case intestacy rules apply.

The OP should re-emerge as a beneficiary on this basis, but only to the extent of 1/4 of the estate so has potentially lost 3/4s which is the measure of loss they can presumably sue the will writing firm for.

However, unless the firm carries adequate indemnity insurance , chances of recovery could be questionable.

Interesting that the will got as far as probate without anyone picking up on the defect, but the angry sister certain has legal grounds for a successful challenge on the validity of the will itself.

OP needs to engage a competent litigator ASAP, and ascertain if the Wiil Writing firm can be made to claim on their PI cover to compensate, assuming they even have such cover. Their negligence seems obvious.

SiliconChip · 11 August at 8:37PM

I'd suggest that if the Will is indeed now invalid as the consensus says and reverts to intestacy (which the OP should confirm by taking her own legal advice) then she should ask her solicitor to write to her siblings explaining the situation in order to head off any unnecessary legal action started by one or more of them, which as mentioned previously could become very expensive.