Inheritance

He also needs to say in his will that he specifically doesn't want his estranged wife (and children) to inherit and why. That makes it much more difficult for her or them to dispute the will by for instance saying he just forgot to include them.

The OP is in Ireland, as am I.

My friend was abandoned by her father shortly after she was born. He cut all contact and, despite being taken to court, never paid the paltry child maintenance he was supposed to.

When he died, he left everything to his new partner and €100 to my friend, thinking that he would be covered as he made some provision. My friend successfully challenged that will.

You can do a cheap divorce on internet. Living apart for many years is valid reason. A couple of hundred pounds is all it will cost.

@SoapOperaFamily - how could your dad, with so much property, be so negligent?!

He is never mentioned now without the addition of (the silly man) to his name. All the things he did in his life, and this is what he is remembered for. His brothers, cousins, other brother’s widow, tenants, best friend all had an interest in me and my siblings inheriting the family estate, but now some woman who only married him for a visa has sold it all, turfed out all the tenants and business partners (his relatives) and the fallout is anywhere from inconvenience to being left homeless or disinherited, depending on who you were. The woman took the money and ran back to her home country, where she is apparently currently running a massage parlour and on the lookout for her next silly older white man.

My dad was an idiot. And that is all I will take forward with me. I advise anyone with even a vaguely complicated family situation and property they wish to leave to someone to get very good legal advice and write a clearly labelled, correctly signed, witnessed and accessibly stored will. Beyond the lost inheritance, it would have saved us years of heartache while this woman slowly strung out a legal battle at a speed of her own choosing (and which is still ongoing several years later between her and one of my siblings) and ruined our ability to grieve in peace. There are not enough circles of hell for her. I have never believed in an afterlife but this woman does, and a bit of me hopes it is real enough that when her time comes she will fear death because she knows my dad will be waiting to give her his thoughts on what she did. We know he knew at the last minute he had made a mistake, because he died in a panic trying to signal to us to get him a pen to write down his wishes.