The legal area of Wills and Estates is fraught with difficulty. The main reason is that disputes often arise as to the contents of deceased persons’ Wills, and the people who wrote the Wills are not around to explain what they intended and the reasons why they did what they did when drafting their Will.
The most common forms of dispute regarding Wills arise out of the following:
- Family provision claims – also known as contesting a person’s Will.
- Testamentary capacity cases – where someone is arguing that the deceased lacked the mental capacity to make a Will.
- Constructions suits – where the terms of the Will are ambiguous or confusing and the Court’s assistance is required to interpret them.
Another common type of dispute that arises in the context of deceased Estates is that of constructive trust or resulting trust. This usually occurs where a deceased person has promised someone a portion of their assets, sometimes in return for things like domestic assistance and care, but this promise is not contained in their Will and therefore there is no record of it. The law says that people who have been made such promises have the right to enforce these promises if they can be proven.
This week we attended a mediation in a deceased Estate matter where we were able to secure an award for our client in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This dispute involved a deceased person who left a Will leaving his entire Estate to a friend and some charities and leaving nothing to his three adult sons.
If the matter had have proceeded to a hearing in the Supreme Court of NSW because no settlement could be reached, the legal fees would have most likely exceeded $250,000. This is money that would have been taken directly from the pockets of beneficiaries to pay for Lawyers and Barristers.
We were able to assist in avoiding these costs and putting more money in our client’s pocket by coming to a mutually beneficial settlement.
These types of family disputes are not often motivated simply by financial gain. There are many personal and emotional issues attached that it takes an experienced Lawyer to navigate.
Contact us today if you are involved in a some type of Estate dispute and we will tell you if we can help you free of charge.
