Should judges be able to change wills?

I'm sure she does feel hard done by having been cut out of her mother's will (especially for a decision she made at 17), but in my mind it undermines the law to overrule the last wishes of someone who was in a fit state to make a decision about the disposal of their estate.

Although the daughter may have liked to, she did not care for her mother before her death, doesn't appear to have helped at all in her later years (again, I'm not condemning her for this - it sounds as if her mother wouldn't let her near) and so I don't feel that she has a claim on her mother's money just by virtue of being her biological daughter.

A will is a legal document, but now I'm not sure I'd feel secure in my wishes being upheld if this becomes a trend. Sounds like a one-off though (hopefully)

I am appalled at this ruling. Surely - at least if in sound mind and body - it is the right of the person with the estate to choose what they do with it. In the BBC analysis they said that this may pave the way for people to have to write a letter explaining why they are disinheriting their successors - but the woman had done that so what difference will it make? Hard obviously to know where the fault lies in the breakdown of the relationship when we have only the bare facts. But I want to know that the will I have made with great thought gone into it will be kept to whether the beneficiaries are happy with it or not. Isn't that the point of a will?

In this particular case I'd say yes.

Maybe the judges paid some thought to the claimant's late father's share of the inheritance.

Most judges are very wise IMO.

Also what about the charities? Many (most?) depend on legacies to survive and do their work. I realise this is an extreme case but it could pave the way for other people to contest money left outside the family which could have disastrous implications. I agree with the above posters - my estate. My decisions. I think I have been fair to my children but I have left a legacy to a charity whose work I have always supported and who my family has benefitted from and would hate for anyone to have the power to take that away from them

But riverwalk - if you read the guardian version of the story it appears that means testing played a big part in the judge's decision. So basically if she had been solvent she wouldn't have won. Which in my mind is wrong - either she was entitled or she wasn't (I think she wasn't) but for future consistency they have to make their minds up or it's going to end up with the system even more of a mess.

We are in the midst of a family dispute over a will. My elder sister died unexpectedly in June and although she had made a will - quite an intricate one in fact, she was in process of changing one element of it. She was taking out my other sister, my younger brother and me and leaving our share to three nieces, one of whom is my daughter. She died the day before the new will was to be signed.

The executors asked the three disinherited if we would be willing to abide by her wishes expressed in the new unsigned will and forego our inheritance. I said that I would do that but the other two have declined and want to take their portion so I have decided that I will take mine and divide it between the three nieces as my deceased sister wished. It has caused a lot of bad feeling and although I have been praised by the recipient nieces for my intention to try and fulfil what she wanted, I do feel slightly hurt and slightly rejected that I was to be disinherited. Why would she do that after all these years, with no word of explanation?

The lawyers have said that the existing will could be challenged on the basis that a new will had been drawn up, even though not signed, but the costs would be considerable and may not be worth it.

It feels like something out of Bleak House.

You're right about Bleak House Gagagran. I know from experience that a contested will can drag on for years and the only winners are the lawyers.

There are a lot of fat cats running charities these days. Even if I had no family to leave my pittance to I would leave it to something like Cancer Research.

I think the judge was right. If the mother was determined not to leave her estate to her daughter she could have left it to her grandchildren instead.

We know this scenario. After my FIL died, and whilst going through his computer, I found that a new will was being drawn up that disinherited my OH and his sister and passed all his estate on to the grandchildren.

It turned out that this had been at the suggestion of my OH's sister, who had told her Dad she did not need the money and did not think we did either - without asking us! In fact our savings are very small and the money we inherited has made us much more secure. We both felt pretty irritated with the sister, who should have consulted us first.

We divided half of the inheritance money between our children - we would have done this anyway - and it was very valuable to them, particularly one who was struggling to put together a down payment on a house.

The children knew what had happened and were keen for us to retain our inheritance - they are very happy with how we arranged things in the end.

I wonder if the decision made by the judge would have been different if the money had been left to humans, possibly relatives though not necessarily, or even 'human' charities rather than animal charities?

I think it's completely wrong.
The mother could have given away large sums of money while alive, leaving almost nothing, and then nothing could have been done about it.
There was no element of doubt about her sanity or about what she wanted done, and not done, with her money.
So it's not reasonable for judges to interfere and change her bequests.

The RSPCA is rolling in funds. I can't help wondering if there were realtionship issues with mum and daughter long before daughter "ran off"

It sounds totally spiteful to me and the judge made a very humane response.

As for sticking to the wishes of a will, the wishes of the deceased seem to frequently be ignored when a person leaves an organ donation request which is refused by the family.
I wonder what the legal position is or if there is one.

From what I understand, if there is someone you do not wish to inherit but who might possibly have some kind of claim that could challenge the will, the way to go is to leave a small legacy, say 10% of your estate, to that person. You should state clearly why you do not wish them to inherit more and make it clear that you would have preferred to have left them less or nothing at all but wish to prevent extra hassle and stress to the person(s) who inherit the bulk of the estate. Of course, dependents, such as children, are quite rightly entitled to inherit but this can also be quite tricky if you have supported an adult – say, a live-in lover – for a number of years.

What is the point of making a will if someone can come along and change it? My elderly neighbour (who has no children but has nieces and nephews) has told me that she will be leaving everything to charities as her family treat her so badly. When she is ill she doesn't get so much as a phone call, they turn up when it is their birthdays or at Christmas as they know she will give them money. If it wasn't for her neighbours she would be completely alone. I'm not sure I agree that dependents are rightly entitled to inherit. Why?

I think that wills are contested a lot.We have drawn up ours in a way that should satisfy all and done very equally.Wills cause endless strife in families it's such a shame.With your will, if there is any doubt, you can add a' letter of Intent' which judges will take into consideration but that can still be contested as well.

I think the judge made the right decision. The mother appears to have been a vindictive woman who presumably stopped supporting her daughter at a relatively young age. I therefore think the daughter is entitled to some recompense for that neglect.

This appears to be quite an unusual case and I think it's unlikely to undermine the majority of wills.

Law in Scotland is quite different.

Children are by right are entitled to a proportion of the moveables, but not heritable.

www.myscottishlawblog.co.uk/2012/11/04/can-i-disinherit-my-children-in-scotland/

No, I don't think a right as a right to overturn a will. If an adult child behaves really badly towards a parent, then said parent should have the right to disinherit them. (Not saying this is the case here- we probably don't know all the ins and outs of this case)

Isn't that slightly different from this case? If the reports are correct, this woman was in effect disowned by her mother when she was 17 because she disapproved of her marriage. My own feeling is that parents have a responsibility towards their children and 17 is far too young to cut them off without emotional and practical support.

My gut reaction is that I'm glad the daughter got a share of the estate - even though I accept it rather muddies the water regarding a person's right to leave their estate to whomever they choose. Anyway, I assume the judge felt that such a decision was legally valid.

My mother is still living, but you can bet your bottom dollar that she has stipulated that I am not to get a penny!

Despite practically turning my life upside down to help and support her when my step father was ill and dying, and after he died.

heaven only knows what I have done, she was ok when DH2 and I got together, even had the holiday from hell with him, her, me and DS2 (now dead) but I have posted before about how she was when Jack died.

My late stepfather would be horrified, he tried so hard to ensure that I would be provided for, even tried to adopt me to make things easier, bless him! (Didn't quite work, as I was a married adult at the time! )

When that didn't work out, he was trying to set up a pension for me, but sadly he got too ill to sort it.

He was a lovely man, lived life on a different planet!(Titled family, didn't quite "get" what a mortgage was!)

Couldn't he just have bunged you some money, pheonix?

I do feel quite uneasy about the way Wills seem to be able to be challenged and in some cases overturned these days. Why should anyone of sound mind have to justify (in writing) their wishes as regards the way their estate is distributed?

phoenix, sorry!

Phoenix, your story makes me have a bit more sympathy for the daughter in this case. I read she'd tried several times to reconcile with her mother, unsuccessfully. I agree with Eloethan and others, that parents have a responsibility to support children beyond the age of 17 but this relationship was probably in big trouble long before that. Maybe the mother was an unpleasant individual but is that justification for over turning her will? The fact that some of the estate resulted from the death of the daughter's father seems irrelevant to me. It was the mother's money, to do with as she wished, nasty and vindictive may some of us feel her decision was.

What about parents/relatives who don't leave equal proportions, or any cash to the adult child who has caused them huge grief, already had a lot of financial support which has been misused to fund a drug/alcohol lifestyle. I do hope this judgement doesn't leave the door open for such wills to be challenged.

Iam I have tried many, many times to get this situation "sorted", but just end up being verbally abused. Last time was November 17th last year in Waitrose! It might have been entertaining for the other shoppers, but it didn't do me much good.

Listening to a lawyer on radio yesterday - she said that the number of wills that are contested is very small indeed. She also said that this case went in favour of the daughter because she was so poor - which seems a strange reason. However, the fact that some of the mother's estate came from her husband, seems to have been in the mind of the judge, who appears to have decided that the daughter was entitled to some of the money that came from her father.

The law in Scotland does seem fairer, where children are always entitled to a share of a parent's legacy.

However, in France it leads to many complications with property, as the children are all entitled to a share, so you can finish up with a house belonging to 4 people or more, all of whom have different ideas as to what should happen to it.