Relationships Matter: Why your relationship with the grantor matters in Trust and Will lawsuits

If you are trying to overturn a Trust or Will, you may be interested to know what weight your relationship with the grantor/decedent has in your case.

The following is a transcript of this video:

In this video, I want to discuss why your relationship with your parent is important if you’re bringing a trust or will contest. So let’s say you thought that you were going to get an equal share of your parent’s estate. But, after they passed away, there’s been a trust amendment and you’re now out. You’re getting nothing. You’ve been disinherited. That’s obviously a horrible situation and you probably want to file a lawsuit to invalidate the amendment that disinherited you.

But in order to do that, because you’re the one contesting the trust amendment, you have the burden of proof. You’re the one who has the burden to convince the judge that the amendment should be invalidated. And so you’re going to have to bring forth admissible evidence. But one of the things that judges look at when it comes to invalidating a trust and will – and this is not the statute, per se – but it’s a very real part of your case is what type of relationship did you have with your parent.

So for example, if you have been estranged from your parent for ten years before their death and then they died and you find out you’ve been disinherited, it’s going to be much harder to convince a judge that that’s not what your parent meant to do. Because judges are people. They’re going to look at these things and think, well, is this a fair result? That’s not, again, in the statute, but it’s just the way that you have to persuade a court. It’s the way you have to persuade a judge is to tell them a compelling story that underlies your case.

Now, compare that to somebody who not only had a great relationship with their parent, but maybe they actually were taking care of the parent. They were over there every day taking care of Mom as she got sicker and sicker until she finally passed away. That’s going to be somebody who has a more sympathetic story because they’re more involved in the parent’s life.

It’s going to be a little easier to convince a judge that if that person was disinherited, it’s probably not what the parent wanted versus a child who has been estranged for many, many years. It’s a little bit easier to believe that the parent may have wanted to disinherit that child. So it really just comes down to the underlying story of your case and you need to have a compelling story to tell the judge so that somebody will want to rule in your favor. And that’s where your relationship with your parent becomes so important. And as your parent ages, sometimes, those relationships become more difficult, especially as a parent gets sick or develops dementia or Alzheimer’s, because they can become more difficult to be around. But it’s important that you maintain that parent relationship if you think that there’s going to be a problem because it’s going to help your case at the end of the day.