Advice on inheritance disputes

[Ilovechinese]

Hi I'm just wondering if anyone on here has been to court to contest a will and if so how long did it take to get to court and what the process is. I'm going through this at the minute (well not got to court yet) but have a caveat in place to stop probate.

I will not blindly fight if my solicitor says I dint stand a chance

I am very sorry you are going through this.

There is every risk that you will not win or that you run out of money to finance the fight. You could easily end up paying your own and also the other party's costs too. There is no way to control what costs they will incur.

When you take your solicitors advice on whether you have a chance, please bear in mind that their costs must be paid whatever happens. Most solicitors would discourage you from undertaking the case but an unscrupulous one might decide to take the business anyway.

It's no problem for them, they get paid anyway. As PP said, they will stop work when you run out of money.

Or are the family urging you to fight it also offering to fund the fight ?

Dear OP, this link relates to the mirror will issue I mentioned. I've not looked to see if it got appealed further or if there's been any subsequent precedent.

www.barrettandco.co.uk/2017/11/26/high-court-has-ruled-couples-mirror-wills-can-be-set-in-stone/

Good luck.

So from what you say it sounds like you wouldn't have took will instructions from my mother an I right? So you think his solicitors acted questionable then?

I don’t read the post like that at all

You’re clutching at invisible straws

Tbh I suspect your solicitor could put it up in neon lights and you wouldn't want to hear it. You'd still try to find a irrelevant nuance to prove that you are entitled to more.

The fact you were specifically left something indicates your mother made a decision to split it the way she did. She didn't leave you out altogether. That hurts, I get it, but it is what it is. Hurt doesn't equal wrong.

OP, I’ve followed this thread and initially, felt your pain as it was palpable. I’m now less sure and feel you are after revenge. I’m afraid I cannot imagine how you will be successful and there is a genuine chance you could financially ruin yourself doing this.
I do regularly capacity assessments as part of my job. You can shout about the strong medication until the cows come home but it isn’t relevant. Many people are lucid and have capacity to make complex decisions right up until the very end of their lives. I’ve seen people and they’ve sadly died 2/3 days later and I would never have guessed, given how intact their cognition was at the time.

You are so eaten up with bitterness now but this will only increase more after you've spent thousands, still need to spend thousands and it still seems likely that you will lose.

OP You keep going on about fairness, but it might help to try thinking about things this way, and avoid bankrupting yourself.

The following may NOT be what happened, but, just as an example, consider this:

Your mother knows she is dying. Like many older people she does not want to die in hospital. She's frightened and in pain. She also knows that care home fees are extremely expensive : maybe £1500 per week or more. So is getting care-at-home. That often also involves extra expenses, such as heating, laundry, food...

Just perhaps - we don't know - your brother suggested that your mother live with him. How long was she there - two-three months, I think you said? That saved the estate (say) £25,000 .

The following are just notional figures, but say your mother left £100,000.
It would surely be "fair" if that sort of sum saved by home care went to your brother, in addition to his "equal " share. As other posters have said, it is no joke looking after a terminally ill person, even for someone like your brother's partner with nursing training.

Under an arrangement like this, two of you siblings would get (say) £25,000 each, while he would get £50,000 - plus, of course, whatever else your mother chose to leave him. She might have felt so relieved and grateful to be dying in family surroundings that she left him a very generous additional sum.

I'm not saying that this happened. I'm just saying that it is just one possible "innocent" scenario to account for your mother's will. And it's not an "unfair" one.

@Schuyler she was having halicinatonts though seeing passed relatives so is that really having capacity?

@Schuyler there is no revenge to be had. Either I won and it gets made equal or I lose and get nothing and likely have huge debts on top. So how is that revenge?

Win*

Hallucinations*

Schuler my shortest time between instruction and death was 3 hours. I live next to the hospital and the palliative care team know I will visit day or night. I think it unlikely the solicitor would have taken instructions if she had serious concerns as to capacity. You have a duty to do the right thing and have your professional obligations to consider.

@florascotia2 I would probably happy if thats the amounts we were talking although I dont think a relative doing the looking after their parent would expect to receive the same amounts a care home would charge if they were doing it purely out the goodness of their hearts. But it is far more unequal amounts than that. I would be fine with them receiving more for care costs and funeral planning.

OP, you’re angry and hurt. You’re making (potentially ruinous) financial decisions based on that rage and bitterness. It won’t end well.

Accept that - for whatever reason - your mother actively chose to leave the bulk of her estate to her eldest. It’s not your father’s money, it’s not rightfully yours, no one stole it. It belonged to your mother and she made a choice that upset you. That’s her right. I’m sorry you’re upset, but you’re making things so much worse for yourself.

But there is a difference between someone looking after a parent out if pure love and the parent thanking them by leaving them more in inheritance and someone looking after a parent (or getting their trained partner to do it as the case would be) with a motive behind it the whole time to get them on their own and manipulate and coerce them into leaving their entire (or 90%) of it to them and effectively stealing from their siblings and mother on her deathbed.

Has your brother admitted that was his motive? I can’t think of any other way of proving it and without that you don’t have a case do you?

Morality and legality are unfortunately two different things.

How much were you left OP? And how much was your brother left?

The fact that you were left something makes me think you have no leg to stand on with this one.

I hope you don't allow this to become an obsession. Your children won't thank you for that. Especially if it ruins you financially.

I often buy one of my kids something and not the other. I brought my youngest a cuddly toy. Yet I didn’t buy her sister one

Why? Because she got it for a reason.

It does and can happen. I’m not doing it to be nasty ever. There isn’t ever any bad intention because of it. It’s just what happened at the time....

First of all, OP, I am so sorry for your loss. I'm sorry that you never had the mother that you wanted and that you have now lost the mother that you had.

If I've understood you correctly, your brother said that he was ready to go to court a year ago and I am sorry that this has been going on so long for you.

What comes across to me here is that for all that you acknowledge that your relationship with your mother was difficult, you are not willing to see that your mother could have written the will that she wanted with full capacity and without coercion. It is almost as if you are trying to protect yourself from looking too closely into any other reasons why your mother chose to leave smaller amounts to yourself and your sister. I am not legally trained but by leaving you and your sister percentages of her estate (albeit not equal) perhaps your mother quite deliberately 'closed down' any possible future disputes over her estate to ensure that her will would stand.

Also, if your assessment of your brother and his partner's characters and actions are correct, then you could end up locking yourself into a really nasty, hurtful, drawn out dispute.

You sound very fragile already, OP and if you have already lost a year of your life to this dispute would you be prepared or able to lose any more money, your health and your peace of mind as well. Also, what would be the cost, financial and otherwise, to your children.

OP
If you have proof that your brother coerced your mother and fooled a solicitor at the same time, that's one thing in your favour. Proof would need to be something other than your opinion or assumption.
What actual proof do you have?
How much money did your DM leave you and all your siblings, including your brother?

OP have you read this from a pp and secondly have you understood the implications?

<a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.inheritancedisputes.co.uk/case-studies/defending-challenge-will.html" target="_blank">http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.inheritancedisputes.co.uk/case-studies/defending-challenge-will.html

Let's be clear - you could already be in serious shit.

You're the one with the caveat. You've said in previous posts your brother hasn't yet come back to you legally on removing this.

The reality is it's likely he's building a case and incurring costs to prove the validity of the will.

Yet again - despite your assertions you've not posted anything that constitutes proof of coercion but this is what his solicitor will ask you to do - or withdraw the caveat.

At this point you have to contest the will or withdraw.

Even if you withdraw, your brother can still claim from you the costs you've forced the estate to incur by blocking probate.

In other words you could already be liable for thousands of pounds worth of costs even though you haven't yet contested the will.

Do you understand this?

For goodness sake you need to get your head out of the sand.

Go see a solicitor ASAP. The longer this goes on the worse it gets.

From the link:

This case illustrates how some claimants fail to understand the law when submitting a challenge to a will and in particular the serious legal consequences that can follow if a caveat is issued and not withdrawn. in this instance the costs awarded against the claimants was substantial, though the total would have been significantly higher if they had not come to their senses soon after issuing and had instead pressed on with the challenge all the way to court.

There is no need for a capacity assessment. The law is clear that there must be an assumption of capacity unless there is some reason to indicate a lack of capacity about the specific decision. There is no ability in U.K. law to simply say someone lacks capacity: Capacity refers to each individual decision at the time it is being made.

Someone hallucinating may well be sufficiently lucid at the time the Will was signed. Someone seeing people walk past may be suffering from something like Charles Bonnet Syndrome that causes visual disturbances but does not affect cognitive functioning.

@DeRigueurMortis yes I did read that and it says I can remove the caveat before it gets to court so I will do that if it turns out I dont have a good case. Also yes I have a solicitor and we are collecting our evidence. You say he is probably collecting evidence to prove it is valid but he told me they were "ready" to go to court a whole year ago. If they were so ready why have I still not heard about it? And how long would it take them to collect evidence if its such an open and shut case as everyone is saying? That's what has really got me thinking on why is it taking him so long and he has not got his solicitors to write to me in all that time