Should judges be able to change wills?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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)