Challenging Will

[Tinogirl]

Not me, but posting with permission from my cousin.

My cousin’s brother-in-law died just after Easter. He was unmarried and did not have children.

His will made during Covid and perfectly executed, paid for through his work, left everything to his best friend’s daughter who was his Goddaughter.

My cousin is annoyed and upset that her daughter who is eighteen months old did not receive an inheritance from her uncle and believes that she would have been included if the BiL had got round to updating will.

She wants to challenge, I don’t think that she has a leg to stand on. Nobody was really dependent on him although he did support his own parents, my cousin’s in-laws.

Her husband, the deceased’s brother wants his parents to challenge but they have refused.

How much did the mother lend for the house deposit? Was it more than £80k?

Your cousin's husband will just have to wait. He and his DD may well inherit when his parents die.

The deceased made an active choice to leave nothing to his siblings too - if he had wanted hypothetical nieces and nephews to benefit this would have been a way to do that.

My Will splits between my sister, goddaughters and nieces. I would update if a new niece or nephew came along, but would leave all the existing beneficiaries in as any inheritance I leave will be a nice to have bonus rather than expected.

All we do know is that the deceased chose not to update his will to benefit his siblings children. If anyone is sitting here with an out of date will, let this be the lesson to update it!

My aunt’s will leaves her entire multi-million £ estate split between 4 charities. We see her a lot, DD6 adores her and vice versa, she’s close to my dad, her only sibling, I’m her only niece, she is childfree etc.

Luckily my dad must have had an inkling as he has always drummed it into me that very little of material value is yours in life if you didn’t earn it, regardless of how much you hope someone will leave you some free cash. She’s chosen to do something different with her own money and I have to respect that.

I'm recently widowed, no children. I'm worth almost £1m. As it stands, most of it goes to charity (and not the national ones with CEOs on six figures). Your cousin doesn't stand a chance.

Just to say from very personal experience, its amazing what "nice and good" people will do and say when money, especially wills are involved. Its interesting what you say about his company paying. DH and I were offered the opportunity to make wills before he accepted a project job abroad. I wonder if this was something similar? We were asked several "what in the event of" questions and 'as yet unborn" relatives was one of them. I remember it because I knew that medically it wasn't going to happen. Obvs we can't know what was said to this man but if a professional did it, then they probably did mention it.
Not that its relevant but "who else would we leave it to" could be anyone or anything. I am a widow with sibs but no kids. None of my (small) estate is left to family, althouh some is left for the support of my tortoise.

The are of the belief that he wouldn’t have made a will if his employer hadn’t paid for this service and had he got around to changing it he would have either included his niece or made her sole beneficiary.

I'm not following the thinking here. The fact that his employer paid for this service just means that he grasped the chance to make the will that presumably he'd already thought about and got someone else to pay for. Is their argument that he rushed into it because it was being paid for and didn't think about who he was leaving the money to? that he'd have got around to changing it is a big assumption, as well.

Either way I hope they get told they don't have a leg to stand on.

I not doubting cousin has some nice qualities but shes being grabby. The man died, he picked what he wanted and made a will.

Noone knows if he would have changed it, or why he hadnt got round to it.

Tbh I hope every penny goes to his Goddaughter as he wanted

Because generally if you make a will when you are relatively young (as he seems to have been) any competent solicitor will advise you to consider future events. So the wording might be "share my assets between my godchild and any offspring of my siblings" ... even if they don't exist yet.

However, he didn't do that and op's cousin doesn't have a leg to stand on. As someone said earlier the only people to benefit if they do challenge the will will be the lawyers.

The niece is old enough to have been alive when the will was made?

So what makes anyone think she would have been intended to have been a beneficiary?

I agree with others saying they don't have a leg to stand on. What might convince them is if he knew he was declining ie ill over a drawn out period. If he was and didn't change it then there's his intention right there. If it was unexpected, they might be correct in their assumptions but still have no rights to change anything.

umm no. He made it during covid and the niece is only 18m old.

This person was quite entitled to leave his estate to whomever he wished. Challenging it would be likely ruinous for the challenger in the very likely possibility that they would lose

No-one is entitled, or should expect, anything from anyone. Distasteful to think otherwise.

You need a really solid reason, really the only 2 are 1/ was he of sound mind and 2/ was he coerced.
If the answer is no, the challenger is simply wasting their money.
He had no dependents , so you can't sue on that score (quite unlikely to work anyway). The only person with any chance at all would be his mother because his death in service benefit went to her, which shows clear intent.

There is a third one which is estoppel but I can't see that applying here.

So they’re getting £80000 and still want more ?
Cousin’s MIL can give some to her granddaughter if she’s worried.

Absolutely no chance and I'm a solicitor with experience in this area of law. If he wanted his brother's family to benefit, he would have left some to his brother. If he was of sound mind and the will was executed correctly, no chance to challenge in these circumstances.

My in laws left 80% of their estate to their children. It so happens that my DH predeceased them but rather than our children getting his share it went to the other three siblings. My DH had four kids, all born before the Will was made. That’s the way they wrote it and that’s the way it stands. Of course it would have been great if the Will had said, as mine does, that if any of their children predeceased them then that share would go to their kids, but it doesn’t. My kids haven’t even thought about this and I’m certainly not going to do anything about it.
Your relative is not entitled to anything and second guessing what might have been is pointless.

Sorry! I read it as 18!

@mondaytosunday my mums will stated an equal split between the 4 siblings, if a sibling was deceased their share would go to their children. My sister passed away (no children) so the split went 3 ways

Reading about wills on here and the 'can we contest it' threads, it appears that a lot of people think they're automatically entitled to be included in a relative's will, and that relatives have no right to leave their money away from family.

There’s no ‘injustice’. Maybe the deceased was already aware that his brother and SIL were grabby and so made his choice based on their greed!

How mind boggling that the other siblings wouldn’t have done a DoV on the will to ensure his share went to children who’d already lost their father.🤯

So your cousin's child will benefit eventually from an inheritance from grandma. That's good.

It is absolutely unreasonable, nasty and grabby of your cousin to expect more. The deceased was of sound mind and had the freedom to choose who should benefit. Respect that choice.

I hope they don’t have any legal grounds to the estate. We have spent a small fortune setting up our wills to ensure our wishes are carried out, thinking that it could be overturned after we die because someone does not agree with it is crazy.