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Worried about your heirs arguing over what happens after your death? From what will happen at your funeral, to who inherits what, family fall-outs following a death is all to common.
So, what can you do to keep arguments to a minimum and avoid an inheritance claim? There are several things you can do to lessen the likelihood that your family will argue with one another after your death:
Ben Field was a church warden in Buckinghamshire who devised a sinister plot to dupe the vulnerable by manipulating them into fake relationships and then getting them to change their wills.
Undue influence is probably the most common suggestion made to me by clients as an explanation for a family member’s Will having been changed. However, in practice, it is an incredibly high burden to prove, and you rarely see cases going to Court on this basis alone. The risk of losing and costs consequences is just too great.
Janice Johnson faked letters and will documents, which she purported to be witnessed by people who had since died, to avoid being found out. But it wasn’t to be, and she has been found guilty of 5 counts of fraud.
A widow is facing a court bill in the hundreds of thousands after losing a battle against her husband’s first wife and his children for his ice cream fortune.
Norman Gill hired a hitman to kill his wife in 1979 and went on to leave his children only £5,000 each of his £6m estate after a tumultuous relationship with them. He had previously executed a will leaving £5 to his ex wife.
Cases such as this one, Ingram and Whitfield v Abraham [2023] EWHC 1982 (Ch), really demonstrate how crucial it is to have a professional prepare your Will.
In this case, an online will pack was used, and this had the effect of disinheriting the testatrix’s children, who had been the beneficiaries of her previous Will. Instead, the estate passed to Simon, the deceased’s brother, who had prepared the Will.
Businessman David Turner left his £5m fortune to a burger bar chef (Mr Jones) whom he had befriended. Mr Turner had been estranged from his sister for nearly a decade, and there was evidence Mr Turner had a grievance against his sister after she sold her half share in the 14-acre roadside plot to a property development company.
Simon Morton worked long hours farming on the farm all his life for “modest pay” while his sister pursued a successful business career and was discouraged from working on the farm. Their father died in 2001 and mother in 2016, the latter leaving her share of the farm to Simon’s sister, cutting out Simon.
Did you know that, in England and Wales, marriage revokes a Will?
There has been a lot of discussion about changing the law to protect elderly/vulnerable people against predatory marriage – a situation where an individual, often vulnerable due to age or impairment, is coerced or manipulated into a marriage for the purpose of financial exploitation.