Posts Tagged Avoiding Estate Litigation

How to Avoid Challenges to Wills and Trusts, Continued

How to Avoid Challenges to Wills and Trusts, Continued

Here are several additional ways to prevent disputes over your estate. Consider putting a no contest clause in your will. If you suspect that one of your children, or his or her spouse, might make trouble over your will, a no contest clause can help avoid potential problems. In essence, this clause makes the risk of challenging your will outweigh the potential benefit of doing so. A no contest clause typically stipulates that if a beneficiary contests the will’s validity or its provisions, his or interest in the will is forfeited. Of course, you have to leave the heir in question enough of an inheritance to motivate him or her not to challenge the will. Prove that you are of sound mind. This might sound “crazy,” but it’s not. Challenges to wills often involve allegations that the maker of the will (the testator) was not of sound mind when the

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