Wills that make the news
When a Will becomes news, something has gone wrong. A relative challenging the deceased's mental capacity. A family discovering they have been unexpectedly excluded. A document so badly drafted that its meaning is genuinely unclear. An estate tied up in litigation for years while solicitors' fees consume the very inheritance the deceased intended to protect.
These cases are dramatic precisely because they are exceptional. The vast majority of Wills pass through probate without incident - processed, administered, and closed without a single letter before action or a courtroom appearance. Nobody writes about those Wills, because there is nothing to write about. The Will did its job. The estate was distributed according to the deceased's wishes. The family grieved. Life continued.
A successful Will is one that is never talked about at all. The measure of quality in a Will is not its elegance or its complexity - it is that it produces no surprises, no disputes, and no delay.
What makes a Will contentious
Most contested Wills share one or more of the same underlying causes. Understanding them makes it easier to avoid them.
Lack of clarity
Ambiguous drafting is the most common source of disputes. A Will that refers to "my children" without specifying whether this includes stepchildren. A gift of "the house" without specifying which property. A residue clause that does not account for what happens if a beneficiary predeceases the testator. Every ambiguity is a potential argument - and arguments cost money and damage relationships.
Outdated provisions
A Will written twenty years ago may name beneficiaries who have since died, executors who are no longer willing or able to act, and property that has long since been sold. An outdated Will does not automatically fail - but it may produce outcomes the deceased would not have recognised or intended. The most common version of this problem: a Will that leaves everything to a first spouse, written before a second marriage and never updated.
Unexpected beneficiaries - or unexpected exclusions
A Will that makes gifts to people the family did not know about, or that excludes people they expected to benefit, raises questions. Sometimes those questions come from genuine confusion. Sometimes they come from suspicion - a family member who believes someone exercised undue influence over the deceased. Whether or not the Will is valid, the suspicion alone can trigger a challenge.
Execution failures
A Will that has not been signed and witnessed correctly is not valid. Full stop. The requirements under the Wills Act 1837 are specific: the testator must sign in the presence of two independent adult witnesses, both present at the same time, who must both then sign in the testator's presence. The witnesses must not be beneficiaries under the Will, and their spouse or civil partner must not be a beneficiary - if they are, the gift to that person is void. A Will signed without witnesses is not a Will at all.
No explanation for unusual decisions
A Will can say almost anything it likes. But a Will that leaves nothing to one child while dividing everything between others - without any explanation - is an invitation to dispute. A letter of wishes cannot override the Will, but it can explain the reasoning. An explanation does not guarantee acceptance, but it does make a challenge significantly harder to mount successfully.
What a boring Will looks like
A Will that causes no problems shares certain characteristics. None of them are complicated. All of them require attention.
- Clear. Every gift, every beneficiary, every contingency is expressed without ambiguity. The language says exactly what is meant, and nothing is left to interpretation.
- Current. The Will reflects the testator's actual circumstances at the time of death - or as close to it as a recent review allows. Executors are alive and willing. Beneficiaries are correctly identified. Provisions for death of a beneficiary before the testator are in place.
- Expected. The broad shape of the Will is not a surprise to the people most affected by it. This does not mean the contents must be disclosed in full - but families who know roughly what to expect receive the Will's contents very differently from those encountering them for the first time through a solicitor's letter.
- Properly executed. Signed, witnessed, and stored correctly. The original is findable. The witnesses are identifiable if needed. There is no question about whether the document is valid on its face.
- Accompanied by a letter of wishes. Where any decision might raise an eyebrow - an unequal division, the exclusion of someone who might have expected to benefit, a trust rather than an outright gift - the letter explains the thinking. Not as a legal document, but as the voice of the deceased.
The role of regular review
Most of the problems that make Wills contentious are the result of time - a document that was perfectly adequate when made becoming outdated, incomplete, or misaligned with the testator's actual life. A Will made in one's fifties may bear little resemblance to what that person would have wanted in their seventies.
A regular review does not mean a major redraft every year. It means a check: are the executors still right? Are the beneficiaries still correctly identified? Have circumstances changed - a death, a divorce, a new child, a significant change in assets - that the Will does not reflect? If the answer to all of those questions is no, the review takes ten minutes and the Will stands unchanged. If the answer to any of them is yes, a straightforward update resolves the problem before it becomes one.
The bottom line
The goal of a Will is not to be interesting. It is not to express personality, settle scores, or create a lasting monument to the testator's preferences. The goal is to ensure that the people you care about receive what you intended, administered by the person you chose, with no unnecessary cost, delay, or conflict.
A Will that achieves that goal is, by definition, boring. And boring, in this context, is exactly right.
The information in our guides is provided for general information only and is not a substitute for advice based on your individual circumstances.
Wills, trusts, inheritance tax, Lasting Powers of Attorney and estate planning can be complex, and the right approach will depend on your family, finances, assets and wishes. Laws, tax rules, allowances and guidance can also change over time.
You should not act, or decide not to act, solely on the basis of the information in these guides. Where appropriate, you should obtain personalised legal, financial or tax advice before making any decisions.
Reading a guide or completing the Family Risk Review does not create a client relationship with Prime Wills & Estate Planning.