Just Thinking of Challenging a Will in 2023 ?

Here’s What You Need to Know:-

The Section of the Succession Act 1965 is Section 117.  The phrase that applications are based on is –

Has your parent failed in their moral duty to provide for you according to their means.  

What does this mean today?

First things first :

Only when a parent made a Will does this apply.  If there is no Will then there is no basis of claim.  

There is an exception if you are a child of a civil partnership you can lodge a claim.

You only have six months after the Grant of Probate is issued to lodge a claim.  

Now even if you think you have a claim and you get to Court the Court will deal with your case as follows.

1. Is there a case to be made to make an award to a child (usually a grown adult in these cases?) and is there a means to pay it?
2. If number one is answered in the positive what award if any should be made?

Therefore if you do not pass the first test you do not need the second one!

Note that the Court looks at the value of the Estate at the time of death and then at the time of hearing.  

There could be reductions for tax and legal fees which reduce the value of the Estate.  

The Courts now use the following principles as a guide.

See how many you qualify under.  

1. Children have no automatic right to inherit anything.
2. The onus is on the  child/adult  to make the case that there was an actual  failure to provide for them not the Estate to prove they were looked after .  
3. Provision of expensive education to give a child a start in life has been shown to  amount to proper provision.  
4. Special consideration will be given where a child was induced to believe by working in a farm or business it would own it eventually and they shape their life based on it.  
5. The Court will be conscious that the parents know their children better than anyone else.  
6. The updated Case Law recently is that the Court looks at the financial situation existing at the time of the hearing of the child taking the claim.  ie. Have they done well or not in life? 

1. The wording of the section is to provide what is Proper Provision not necessarily Adequate Provision in accordance with the Deceased parents means .

If any of the issues raised here affect you contact us by phone or send us an email in confidence to discuss your situation.