Preventing Family Conflict And Disputes Over Your Estate Plan

Contesting The Validity Of Wills and Trusts

The validity of your will and/or trust can be contested in court for a few different reasons. If such a contest is successful, the court declares your will or trust invalid, which effectively means the document(s) never existed in the first place. This would likely be disastrous for everyone involved.

However, just because someone disagrees with what they received in your plan doesn’t mean they can contest it. Whether or not the individual agrees with the terms of your plan is irrelevant. Rather, they must prove that your plan is invalid based on one or more of the following legal grounds:

·         The document was improperly executed (signed, witnessed, or notarized) as required by state law.

·         You did not have the mental capacity at the time you created the document to understand what you were doing.

·         Someone unduly influenced or coerced you into creating or changing the document.

·         The document was procured by fraud.

Additionally, only individuals with “legal standing” can contest your will or trust. Those with the potential for legal standing generally fall into two categories: 1) family members who would inherit—or inherit more—under state law if you never created the document, and 2) beneficiaries named or given a larger bequest in a previous version of the document.

Solution: There are times when family members might contest your will or trust over legitimate concerns, such as if they believe you were tricked or coerced into changing your plan by an unscrupulous caregiver. However, that’s not what we’re addressing here.

Here, we’re addressing contests that are attempts by disgruntled family members and would-be beneficiaries seeking to improve the benefit they received through your plan. We’re also seeking to prevent contests that are a result of disputes between members of blended families, particularly those between spouses and children from a previous relationship. 

Working with an experienced lawyer is critically important if you have one or more family members who are likely to be unhappy with how they are treated in your plan. Some of the leading reasons for unhappiness include having a plan that benefits some children more than others, as well as when your plan benefits friends, unmarried domestic partners, or other individuals instead of—or in addition to—your blood relatives.

In these cases, it’s vital to make sure your plan is properly created and updated to ensure these individuals will not have any ground to contest it. One way to do this is to include clear language that you are making the choices laid out in your plan of your own free will, so no one will be able to challenge your wishes by claiming your incapacity or duress.

Beyond that, it’s also crucial that you clearly communicate your intentions to everyone affected by your will or trust while you’re still alive, rather than having them learn about it when you’re gone. We often recommend holding a family meeting (which we can facilitate) to go over everything with all impacted parties.

Prevent Disputes Before They Happen
The best way to deal with disputes is to make sure they never occur in the first place. This means working with us, your Estate Plan Provider, to implement strategies aimed at anticipating and avoiding common sources of conflict. Moreover, it means constantly updating your plan to keep pace with your changing circumstances and family dynamics.

Whether the dispute arises from disgruntled heirs, sibling rivalries, or conflicting interests of your blended family, as your Estate Plan Provider, we are specially trained to predict and prevent such issues.

This article is a service of Simpson Law Firm. We do not just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That's why we offer an Estate Planning Session, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. You can begin by calling our office today to schedule a session.