What Happens if a Will is Contradictory, Confusing or Ambiguous?

A will is ultimately a document that is written by a human being, and as such, we humans are prone to errors. One of those errors is confusion or ambiguity, when writing documents like contracts or a will.

That can leave your beneficiaries confused, the status of your will in doubt, and a leave probate court to have to figure out what that ambiguous or confusing language actually means.

Types of Ambiguity in a Will

Ambiguity in a will that requires probate court intervention or interpretation, can take a few different forms.

One form is ambiguity within the document itself. That might be contradictory language in the document–for example, the same asset is listed twice, being left to two different people, in the same will.

Other ambiguities have to do with simple confusion. For example, someone who leaves “my business” to his brother but the person has multiple businesses–or multiple brothers, and the will doesn’t say which is being left to who.

These kinds of cases are different from will challenges, where someone says that a will is a product of coercion or duress or undue influence, or situations where the person making the will, may have been mentally incompetent. In ambiguity cases, the parties aren’t challenging the validity of the will itself–they want clarity on what it actually means or says.

Determining Meaning

The first step in challenging a will because of an ambiguity, or asking a court for clarification, is convincing a court that an ambiguity exists in the first place. The court may read the will and say it is clear what it means, and no interpretation or construction by the probate court is necessary.

As a general rule, courts will look at the entire will, and construct the ambiguous part of the will, in a way that best matches what the deceased’s intentions were, as stated or suggested elsewhere in the will. That is, the court will read the will as a whole, not looking at just one part of the will, in isolation.

As an example, if the will says that “my son Josh will inherit nothing,” then another provision says “my son will get my business,” but doesn’t specify which son gets the business, a court would construe that to mean “not Josh,” given the prior provision of the will disinheriting that particular child.

Outside or Extrinsic Evidence

The court can consider evidence outside the will itself, called extrinsic evidence, to determine what the intent of the deceased was.

Heirs, beneficiaries, family, and others, can present evidence of what the deceased may have said, or what the deceased may have done before death, that might clarify what the deceased meant or wanted.

Get Help

Although these cases are only interpreting the will, that doesn’t mean the stakes are low. An interpretation one way or the other can lead to the inheritance or disinheritance of beneficiaries, making it important to both draft your will correctly, and get help from a probate attorney if there is some confusion or ambiguity in a will.

Call the West Palm Beach probate and estate law attorneys at The Law Offices of Larry E. Bray today if you have a probate court case involving a will or trust.

Source:

scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4980&context=nclr