TO DISINHERIT OR NOT?

When solicitors sit down with clients to draft a will, it is not unusual to be instructed that the client intends to leave a (usually adult) child out of their will because of the child’s perceived neglect and rejection of them. No will-maker takes such a step lightly but they need to be advised that “estrangement” cases demonstrate that generally, only  the most extreme behaviour will extinguish the moral claim a child has on a parent’s estate.

Crawford v Munden; In the Estate of Angel [2020] NSWSC 1463 is an example of what many would see as how appalling and cruel behaviour on the part of a son still did not disentitle him when he made a claim on her estate. He had rejected his mother entirely from his life when she  attempted on many occasions to restore relations and she was rebuffed at every turn. She left him out of her will and he made a family provision claim. The court  stated that while the estrangement was tragic and serious and it was the son’s fault, it was not of a kind that extinguished his claim on his mother’s testamentary bounty.

In the end, willmakers make up their own mind but they need to be advised that, in many cases, their attempt to disinherit a child may be unsuccessful.

Client’s need to be advised of this and they need to have full discussions with their solicitor regarding how such problems might be handled (and throwing a nominal sum at the estranged child is proably not going to work).