What Are Undue Influence Challenges in Probate Court?

The last thing you want when creating an estate plan, are challenges to your will or trusts. The thought of people, particularly family members or close friends, fighting endlessly, and depleting your estate’s resources, as well as the inter-familial hostility that can come with state challenges in probate court, is not something anybody wants to imagine.

What is Undue Influence?

One thing that many people use to challenge a will in probate court, is the idea of what is known as undue influence.

We are all, to some extent, influenced by someone, and that isn’t a bad thing. People are allowed to exert influence over other people—begging grandma to give you the house in the will, by itself, isn’t undue influence. When it comes to undue influence however, the influence becomes so strong, that it almost deprives the person making the will, of their own free will or volition.

Many times, undue influence claims are coupled with claims of coercion, or mental incapacity—challengers to the will, will say that at the time you made or amended your will or estate plan, that you were vulnerable to the pressures of others, and as such, the will that is being probated, is not a product of what you independently wanted to happen, but rather a product of what the person influencing you wanted to happen.

While many times undue influence claims are made alleging close friends or family members influenced the deceased. The person doing the influencing, need not be friends or family.

It may be a caretaker, or a financial advisor, or some other professional that, in the eyes of family, simply exerted so much power and authority, at a time when you weren’t able to resist that authority, that the will is not a true expression of what you wanted to happen. Often influencers are people who have a confidential relationship with the deceased.

Undue influence claims are common in part because the law doesn’t say that the entirety of the will has to be a product of undue influence. Even if just one part or provision of the will was procured by undue influence, that part can be challenged by family members.

Undue Influence Cases

Cases alleging undue influence, will focus on the deceased and the alleged influencer, and on their relationship. Often, influencers will try to exclude close family or friends, to isolate the person with the will, thus making them more reliant on the influencer.

They may take control of the person’s affairs and property even while the person is still alive, and may exclude other family and friends from vital decision-making. They may try to avoid the person from consulting with financial or legal professionals, so that the person believes the influencer’s advice is the advice to follow.

Do you feel that you have been deprived of an inheritance because of undue influence?  Call the West Palm Beach probate lawyers at The Law Offices of Larry E. Bray today for help if you have a probate court challenge or problem.

Sources:

floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/make-it-an-even-10-courts-rely-on-more-than-the-seven-carpenter-factors-to-analyze-a-claim-for-undue-influence-of-a-will-or-trust/

leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0732/Sections/0732.5165.html