Why Do Wills Get Contested in BC?

Most will challenges start with someone who feels wronged. Common triggers are unequal gifts between children, a spouse left out in favour of children from a first marriage (or the reverse), and old family tensions that surface once the person holding things together dies.

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• Reasons to Contest a Will in BC

Full transcript

In your experience, what actually drives people to contest a will? I think if somebody feels that they’ve been wronged and they’re not receiving what they feel they’re entitled to, is what ultimately drives them. If there’s unequal provision as between children, if a spouse has been disinherited in favor of children of a first marriage or vice versa, or where children of a first marriage are disinherited in favor of a second spouse, unfortunately blended families that don’t blend so well often end up in litigation.

There’s often also just very old, slow, boiling problems with relationships between family members that just kind of come bubbling up when somebody dies, and that was not, that’s just kind of bubbling under their surface before that, but when the one person kind of holding it all together ends up dying, is not there to mediate anymore, then that’s when the conflict breaks out.

General information, not legal advice.