Friend been cut out of Mothers Will

[CJ2010]

To cut a long story short my friend was abused by his mother as a child, he cut contact a few years ago and he has since found out through another relative that he has been cut out of her Will.

Can he do anything about this? It just seems so unfair that he suffered so much during his childhood and he (and his DC's) will suffer again. TIA

Bear in mind, she's not dead yet, she could change her will, or the relative could have it wrong.

Collaborate - apologies, just out of interest when does 'contesting a will' apply? Or does it not exist at all.

I think that's right

Did I pass?

Yes, Hathor, quite right. Gold star for you .

OP, you only have one side of the story. I write wills and find that it's not at all unusual for a parent to cut out one of their children, usually because they are estranged for whatever reason. I recommend that the will expressly excludes them on the basis that they are estranged, and that a separate letter is placed with the will to explain the background, in case the child makes an application under the 1975 Act.

Always, in my experience, the reason the parent puts forward is very sad and perfectly valid. That doesn't, however mean that the child doesn't have a very different view.

Generally, as long as the will is properly drawn up and executed, and wasn't written under duress or when the testator had lost capacity, it will be valid. Any disgruntled person who isn't a beneficiary when they would normally expect to inherit will have to prove either that the will was invalid for some reason, or that they were financially dependent on the testator or had acted to their detriment (eg given up a council house to move in with the testator to care for them). There are other circumstances in which they can bring a successful claim, and there have been a couple of success stories in recent years, but in those cases the estate was fairly large and the claimant only received a relatively small amount.

Mumble, I quite agree. As I mentioned previously, many of these cases are settled between the family, and the beneficiary who is named in the Will either varies the Will, or makes a gift of part of their legacy. In fact, I finalised one last week, and had another yesterday where the family are thinking of rearranging things. (mind you, I hand them to a colleague if they do become contentious, because I'm not cut out for contentious stuff).

And, I also prefer to wait until the testator has died, partly because it's not really good form to discuss their Will until they have, and partly because circumstances do change.

I was basically right then. I can't put too much as I don't want to out myself in RL. But all will writing solicitors ask how many children you have and how old they are, along with many other things.

My MIL left the vast majority of her estate to my DH and a small amount to BIL. Her solicitors had it put in writing her (in her eyes) valid reasons for doing what she did. When she died we did a 'deed of variation' so that BIL could have half of the estate (we had always intended doing that if her will was unfair). The solicitors (executors of the will said that BIL would have had little chance of getting anymore than he had been left and that the estate would have spent tens and tens of thousands of pounds from the estate defending what MIL had wanted.

In our case MIL was proved right.

no legal advice here...having been in a similar position as your friend regarding the abuse and cutting all contact from my father, i would not expect to be in his will and if i were i certainly would not accept it...