Why you shouldn’t be worried about someone contesting your will (if you do it right...) | EPTV 060

There are really only three ways that someone can contest a will. The first reason is if it's not executed properly, what that means is it's not signed properly. It's not notarized properly, it doesn't have the proper witnesses that it's supposed to have, right? So if it's just not sort of signed and done and executed properly it would make that will invalid just like any other document. If it didn't have a signature on it, it wouldn't be any good. That's number one.

Number two is if the person that's creating the will doesn't have the capacity to do that, to create the will, which means basically they're not in their right mind. They don't have their faculties about them to know that they are executing a will to know that they are giving their things to someone to know that they are appointing people into certain positions for them. If they don't have the mental capacity to do that at the time they are signing the documents, then that is a valid reason to contest a will. That's number two.

The third reason is duress. So if you are signing a will and somebody has got a gun to your head and they are making you sign the will, that would be a situation that would invalidate that will. Okay. Now, there are all sorts of different levels of duress. There are all sorts of different levels of influence. So it's sort of important to make sure that those situations are handled if they appear to be present. But in most cases, with most people creating their estate plan, creating their will or trust, all that kind of stuff, you're not going to have a lot of these situations come into the picture. Most people are of sound mind, most people are creating a will of their own free will. And then when they come to the office, we made sure all the documents get executed properly. Okay. That's it.

It's really, really important to remember that just because somebody is grumpy about not getting what they think is their fair share or grumpy about what someone else is getting those are not valid reasons to contest a will. Okay. That will not hold up in court. No attorney's going to sort of submit paperwork with that as the basis for contesting the will. All right. That's it. Hopefully, this sort of puts some of your fears to rest and you can now go on and create your will and your estate plan and have the comfort of knowing that everything is taken care of. All right, that's it.

My name's Christopher Small again, with CMS Law Firm. If you know someone that could use this message, that's curious about this, please share this video with them. If you like it yourself, if you thought it was great, that's wonderful. Hit the like button below. Leave me a comment. If you have questions leave comments here or ask questions, that'd be great. I'd be happy to answer them. And that's it. Plan on being here a lot more for these videos. Hopefully, you're checking back in if you know anybody that's interested in this stuff then have them follow the page or whatever. And that's it. So somebody is joined on and so I love there, but that's it. everybody. Thank you so much for your time and I will talk to you again soon.

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Christopher Small and CMS Law Firm want to help you live a rich life now and leave a rich legacy when you die.

Estate Planning TV is all about one thing - getting you to realize how important estate planning is to you while you are alive, and the power estate planning can have in shaping your legacy.

You'll find information here on estate planning, financial planning, productivity, finance, self-improvement, family protection, tax avoidance, retirement planning, estate taxes, charitable giving, investing, life insurance, asset protection, and much much more!

Christopher is the owner of CMS Law Firm LLC, a Seattle estate planning law firm. CMS Law Firm does two things really well: (1) estate planning and (2) probate.

Christopher is a speaker, a blogger, a husband, a father, a golfer, and really good at helping people create the life of their dreams.