Disputes in Estate administration

Not all estates that are left in Wills go through probate and estate administration smoothly.

Sometimes disputes arise because people don’t receive what they expect to receive in a Will.

This can range from one particular item of personal property to a share or the whole of the estate.

For example,2^nd marriages are frequently the cause of dispute where the whole of the estate is left to the new spouse and nothing is left to children.

In this case the first spouse to die leaves all the estate to the surviving spouse on the understanding that whatever passes to the survivor will ultimately be passed on to the children of the first spouse.

The two spouses may even have written Wills in the same terms on the joint understanding that the joint estate on the second death will be divided between each spouse’s children in the shares they made a contribution to the joint estate.

Unfortunately this may not turn out to be the case.

In many cases the whole of the estate passes just to the children of the second spouse because he or she has made a new Will.

At this point the children of the first spouse who were expecting to inherit will usually try to dispute the terms of the Will.

This may be on the basis that they are entitled just on the basis they are  children of the first spouse and they have an automatic right to the estate.

Unfortunately  unless they can prove they were being maintained by their parent then they have no basis of a claim.

They could argue that their parent did not have mental capacity at the time the will was made or that the other spouse exercised undue influence in making a Will giving everything to  the other spouse.

However in most cases this will not apply and nothing can be done.

The way to avoid this is to write a trust for the lifetime of the other spouse with a gift over of the trust assets to the children of the first souse to die on the death of the second spouse .

Consult Consumer Care to deal with this for you and put your mind at rest.