Considerations In Moving Forward With A Will Challenge

In my experience, it's quite common to have a call with a potential client that involves the following situation:

• The potential client has concerns about their relative's last will and testament. The relative's Will was changed shortly before the relative's death, reducing the potential client's share of the estate, or removing the potential client from the Will entirely.
• The relative exhibited memory issues and confusion in the years leading up to their death. The relative may have also shown signs of paranoia or behaved in previously uncharacteristic ways.

In some cases, the facts provided by the client strongly suggest that the relative was unlikely to have had the capacity to make the disputed Will. However, most situations do not fit into this category and there are often many gaps in the potential client's knowledge. This is often because some key information and documentation is not available to review. For instance, documents such as medical records