Different people grieve in different ways, and sometimes people handle the death of someone they love in ways that are confusing or frustrating, such as fighting over small things like who gets a furniture set.
I’ll write today about no-contest clauses. A no-contest clause is a provision in your will or trust or estate plan imposing a penalty if someone were to challenge it. Common challenges to an estate plan include claims such as lack of capacity, not understanding the estate plan they signed, being influenced by another beneficiary to give them more, or not having the documents witnessed appropriately or notarized.
As an example, say I had one son and one daughter and wanted to leave one of them more of my estate. If I wanted to leave my son 60% and leave my daughter 40% of my estate, I could institute a clause stating that if my daughter challenges the fact that it’s an unequal division, she would get nothing. With this clause as part of the estate plan, she might be encouraged to simply accept her 40% instead of filing a lawsuit to say that the document wasn’t valid or that I was influenced by my son. However, if I were planning to leave nothing for my daughter at all, a no-contest clause isn’t going to help as there is no part of the estate she will potentially lose if she files a lawsuit.