A successful contestation of a will cannot simply come about because a member of the family is not happy with the will. Going through the process of the contestation of a will is not a simple one, and it also demands that there are valid grounds as to why the will is faulty or should be questioned.
In order for a person to be able to question the validity of a will, they must at a very minimum have a standing in the will. This means that they must be in-line to inherit at least some of the will that is being questioned.
They must also have valid grounds as to why the will should be questioned. This might be that they believe the grantor or the will was subject to fraud, and they have some proof of this. They may also believe that the grantor was suffering from a mental illness or was mentally incapacitated at the time that they wrote the will. There may also be a belief that there exists a more recent will than the one that is being taken into consideration.
How should I try to prevent a person from contesting a will?
One way that you can work to prevent your will from contestation after your death is to include a “no-contest clause”. This is an effective way of preventing a person from contesting your will in order to fulfill their selfish motives of attaining more inheritance. This is because a “no-contest clause” states that if a person with standing contests a will, he or she will not receive any inheritance.
Source: The balance, “Can you contest a loved one’s will,” accessed Oct. 18, 2017
