Last week's article concerned an LGBT couple where one member had cancer, was in the hospital and wanted to make a will to leave his house, car and the bank accounts to his lover. It isn't enough to simply have a will. The will must be as ironclad as possible. Often times family members who are disinherited in favor of a LGBT lover will be angry as hell and will try to contest the will. Although there is no way to guarantee that a will won't be challenged there are ways to avoid will contests.
First, have your will drafted by a specialist. This area of the law has become more complex. There are cases of inexperienced attorneys making mistakes. Common mistakes include leaving out residuary clauses, omitting contingency plans, misnaming charities and perhaps the biggest mistake of all not keeping up with tax law changes.
Second, try to avoid having an "angry will." Many times someone who is writing a will is mad at a friend or relative and wants to express that anger in the will. Examples could include "I leave nothing to my good for nothing brother, Jack, the louse." Or "I leave nothing to my evil mother and father who never liked my lover." Venomous statements in wills can show the maker to be terribly prejudiced and narrow minded. And carried far enough, such prejudice might be used to show that the maker was incompetent to make the will.
Because angry provisions in wills serve no real purpose it is better to leave them out. You don't want to offer a relative an opportunity to contest your will by showing that you really did love the relative and therefore must have been incompetent at the time the will was signed.
Some people wanting to get retribution from the grave often include a "no contest" or "in terrorem" clause in their will. They will leave a small bequest to family members thinking that they are obligated under the law to leave their families something or run the risk of having their will contested.
Such a clause can raise the issue that the will maker was prejudiced or irrational and provide the ammunition for a will contest. The better practice to simply leave family members out of the will. They must then look elsewhere for the ammunition to contest the will.
