To contest the will

[Coastalcommand]

Sorry if this is long, just trying to explain.
My grandparents were happily married until my grandmother sadly died about 15 years ago. She left everything to my grandad, as you would expect.
This included a large house, substantial savings and various other valuables.
My grandad was lost without her and married again, to a woman who also had her own family.
This was fine, we all got on well, until my grandad sadly died last year.
They drew up wills that left everything to each other, with whoever died second leaving it to their families that split with 80% going to our family and 20% to hers, reflecting the estate at the time they met (she did not own a property or have savings before they married).
As it happened, she sadly died a couple of months after him, and unbeknown to us, her children had been made executors to a new will which left everything to them.
To complicate matters, she was suffering from memory loss and dementia before she died and we don't think she would have had capacity to make a new will.
We have written to her Family and they responded through solicitors to say that they don't think she had anything wrong with her and if we want to challenge will have to take it to the courts.
This seems to be very expensive and I'm not quite sure how we would go about it. But it's sad that my grandparents wishes will not be followed and we have not even been allowed to collect our family photos and Mementoes from my grandparents house before it was sold. They didn't tell us she'd died and got a house clearance firm in without our knowledge. There is nothing left.
One of the executors actually sent a text message to my mum saying that if we do challenge it will we will get nothing anyway as they will have already spent all the money before it goes through the courts.
Would I be unreasonable to try to help my mum telling to this? Does anybody have any experience of this? Do will ever get over attend and is it hugely expensive to do this?

When a will is declared invalid the estate then falls under the rules of intestacy it doesn't reinstate a previous will

That is not correct. If there is a previous valid will it is indeed reinstated. After all, it has never been validly replaced so it remains the last will and testament of the deceased. Intestacy rules only come into play if the deceased does not have a previous valid will.

I think you should challenge it. His wishes should still be executed.

However, it is not easy.

My dad died (this was 17 years ago so maybe things have got better). he had a partner at the time. she was still married and officially not living with him, owned more than one house with her husband. my dad did a handwritten will which the partner didn't know about (she started having a relationship with his brother before my dad died so he had his reasons I guess....), with some friends as witnesses. I can't remember who the executors were. When he died she challenged the will. Although legally clear to lawyers who was right we were advised that the legal process would have probably taken a long time and more money than there was in his very meager estate. My sister and brother - who we agreed would be executors - did an out of court settlement which basically meant that anything worth having went to her.

I regret to this day not fighting and taking it to court. Not because of the money (although my mother should have had the pension - we would have given it to her because she desperately needs it and worked together with him to pay into it although it was only in his name) - there wasn't much. It has left me with a deeply bitter feeling and very bad emotions against that woman, which I don't think will ever go.

If you can walk away from it without any feeling of resentment then do - just accept it and forget it, learn from it and be sure you don't let anyone else close to you make the same mistake.

Otherwise get a very good lawyer.

wtf - are you sure, seems odd a false will - would wipe out previous will made in capacity? By the GF too.....

If the relatives were 100% solid on their ground they wouldnt need to issue threats.

Yes, wills do get overturned. Contesting a will can cost anything from a few thousand pounds up to hundreds of thousands depending on the complexity of the case. It sounds like this would be at the lower end of the scale.

I agree with previous advice that your mother needs to consult a lawyer who specialises in contested probate urgently. They will be able to advise on her chances of success, the likely costs and what steps need to be taken to ensure that the executor cannot carry out their threat to spend all the money.

Your mother must keep the text from the executor you mention. It shows intent to frustrate any court action, which the courts won't like. It also suggests that this executor at least thinks they are on dodgy ground. If they were confident the will is valid they would have nothing to fear from court action, so there would be no need to make this threat.

You need to look at how much money is at stake and compare that to costs and risks. That should be the starting point. It will not be easy. If you don't have a doctor's report from when the woman made a new will in favour of her children it is very very hard to prove she had dementia at the time - particularly as she changed her own will to favour her own children over your side of the family which is hardly the workings of someone mad, just someone not choosing to follow the views of her late husband. The grandfather of course could have avoided all this by just leaving his second wife a life interest or a small part of his estate. He chose not to - silly silly him but it's his choice and look at the consequences of it all now!

wtf - are you sure, seems odd a false will - would wipe out previous will made in capacity

As per my post, wtf is wrong. An invalid will cannot replace a valid one. The valid will remains in force. Intestacy rules only come into play if there is no previous valid will.

When a will is declared invalid the estate then falls under the rules of intestacy it doesn't reinstate a previous will and it is that bit which will cause you problems.

I didn't know that! How interesting! Presumably under intestacy her children would get every penny anyway?

OP this must be very distressing for you. My granny remarried and when she died everything she had (bar a very few personal items) rightly went to her husband. When he dies I expect his estate will rightly go to his children, but I must admit I am a bit twitchy about what will happen to items which were personal to him because of her, but which his children will not have any particular attachment to, such as paintings she did of her grandchildren (me and my cousins). And that's within a family where all the steps are completely amicable and it's highly likely his children will hand that kind of thing over to her children without needing prompting!

I've learned from MN that wills have the power to turn apparently ordinary people into heartless bastards. I'm so sorry this appears to have happened to you. It sounds as though the personal items are long gone via the house clearance. It's very telling that the only thing they've messaged you about is the money - completely missing the point.

Crossed with prh - thanks for confirming. It did seem odd that one could effectively wipe out a previous valid will by bodging up a dodgy one!

Enourmous from my reading yesterday though - pressure on lady over 70 from beneficiaries is also taken into account. You say, its not the sign of madness but it could be seen as sign of pressure?

"It could be argued that the writer was not in a fit state of mind or was under undue influence from another beneficiary, for instance. It could be claimed the will was forged by another party or that there weren’t enough witnesses present"

This type of thing happened to my ex
His sister and awful husband got his mum to sign power of attorney and they took all her savings and sold her house. She also had dementia.
Even though my ex was in the will as having a third of the house he never saw a penny.
People can be dreadful about this sort of thing.

Thanks PH - otherwise anyone could do dodgy will as a tool to wipe out valid one!

Mrskeats in that instance it depends where that money went, it was supposed to go on the person with dementia, and there should have been clear paper trail showing that. Otherwise its fraud.

This happened to us. Grandma died and left all to grandad (they were married for 65+ years), granddad Marie's their live in carer who was younger than my mum. Granddad died within a year and new will pops up leaving everything to her and completely cut my mum out. New will drafted by completely different solicitors firm (granddad had used same firm for 50+ years). Nothing we could do. Very sad for all involved. Sorry you are in this situation but probably nothing you can do.

Professional advice immediately, they are trying to pull a fast one on you. They didn't tell you she'd died and they got the house cleared without telling you? That's disgraceful. They're trying to intimidate you, too. Seriously, don't hover on mumsnet, ring a solicitor in the field now, you should get initial advice without incurring upfront fees.
These people are behaving abominably and trying to get away with it without you fighting back. DON'T LET THEM.
I feel very angry on your behalf, OP!

Its mind boggling isn't it. Mind boggling. I just cant ever imagine DH passing on, me re marrying and leaving assets open to attack which need to go to my DC!!! I would do anything to make sure assets from DH and I go to our children!

I think you need to ask yourselves

• is it the money and/or the principle
• how much is the principle worth to you
• is the stress worth it

and definitely get legal advice asap

If the Will is contested before the estate has been divided, I believe the estate cannot be transferred until a court has ruled on the legality of the will.

Yes I know Iadore
Trouble is you need lots of money for lawyers really to prove that
Horrible ex sil let her daughter move into the house without telling my ex and next thing we know there is a for sale sign up.
Basically 180,000 disappeared

There is a time limited of 6 months I believe from the date of probate being granted for someone to raise an objection to the will. I think you need to get a specialist probate solicitor to go through this with you. Your GF left her everything, so in reality it was hers to do with as she wished unless of course she was made to change her will under duress. Your GFs will was in effect a wish not a legal requirement. We had something along the same lines with my late FIL - his wife was a complete evil biatch who insisted that their entire estate went to each other then charity and none of their children but when she passed away, FIL changed his will immediately as he said it was her wish not his, and he left his entire estate to DH and my SIL. They were told not to dispose of significant assets due to the possibility of her family contesting the will for 6 months after probate but thankfully they didn't. The house was FILs when she moved in and she had nothing of any value that she brought into the marriage so the solicitor felt that they had very little change of successfully contesting it.

I am so getting a new will after all these stories.
I am still boggling that the op was not informed of the death. Grim.

There is a time limited of 6 months I believe from the date of probate being granted for someone to raise an objection to the will

That is the time limit if the OP's mother was claiming maintenance under the Inheritance Act. This may be a claim for fraud in which case there is no time limit. However, if the estate has already been distributed it will be more complicated. If it has not been distributed the OP's mother can get an injunction to prevent distribution of the estate. All is not lost if it has been distributed as it may be possible to recover the money from the beneficiaries. But the OP's mother needs to move quickly. Make an appointment with a lawyer TODAY.

ladore, I am a lawyer although not nin this area. My father had pressure we think put on him to change his will to give someone a quarter. The public guardian eventually sent someone out to assess him. That took 8 months ( you can get their medical visitor i think for no charge to come out and assess the person) . You would have throught clear case - he hardly knew who anyone was by then however the other party simply said in the 8 months he had got worse and when he made the will change he was right as rain (even though being treated for dementia by his doctor). It's very unfair and hard. As it was just 25% we left it and did not go to court but I don't think in his right mind he would ever have given that quarter to that person who had a tenuous connection to him at best. It was the lack of a doctor's report from the time he did the will change which made things hard for us so if I were doing it again I would have paid for a private doctor to assess him the week after he changed his will. Even then the doctor might well have disagered - my father's lawyer very helpfully and cleary,l explained why their view was he knew what he was doing and they did think he met the test (you can make a valid will when you have dementia by the way - the issues are do you know whothe people are you are leaving it to etc etc - there are law society guidelines on it). In the light of all that we left it.

One reason i will never marry again is I want my children to inherity 100%. I won't risk that with a second marriage or even bother to move someone else in - what's the point? >They just snore and leave stuff around and I don't need their money and I've had my children.

Had she been officially diagnosed with dementia before the new will was made? If so, I would think you might have a case, but would certainly seek legal advice first.

Sadly, I have heard of several cases of relatives taking advantage of people with dementia, will-wise.

There are a lot of nasty, greedy sharks out there.

I am about to remarry but plan to alter my will so that my kids still have my house which I bought alone and have no mortgage on.
I hope that sorts it.
Sorry for hijack.

I suppose with blending families this is all going to be the norm now. I don't think I would get married again either and will also pass this onto DH, we did "Will" recently and were told once you re marry its all up in the air again, it seems only sure fire way of protecting house for DC is not to marry.