Disinherited Child Cases in BC: Who Wins and Who Doesn’t

A child abandoned by a parent when young, through no fault of their own, has often succeeded in a wills variation claim. A child who already received and wasted large sums, or who abused the parent, may be validly disinherited.

Learn more

• Who Caused the Estrangement that led Father to Disinherit Daughter?

Full transcript

Can you tell me about a case where a disinherited child succeeded and one where they didn’t? So I think a good example of a good applicant under wills variation, for a child, would be somebody who was abandoned when they were younger as a child by a parent. They didn’t end up having a relationship with that parent because of the abandonment. The abandonment is not their fault because they were a child. And the courts have looked at cases like that as saying, well, you know, the responsibility was on the parent to have a relationship with the child. And so the child cannot be blamed for the estrangement and has warranted that child to receive a variation in their favor for an inheritance.

And an example for when a child is justifiably disinherited would be just based on their own poor behavior, their misconduct. So they may have received large amounts of money from their parent over the course of their lifetime. And they’ve squandered it over sex drugs and alcohol, rock and roll, or they’ve had multiple business ventures that have failed and they’ve wasted the parent’s money. Then that’s seen as a pretty good reason to not give them any more money because they’ve squandered their inheritance already. Or they’ve otherwise mistreated the parent through elder abuse, threatened violence, actually used violence on the parent. Those are all good reasons to disinherit a child as well.

General information, not legal advice.