Foolish Old Man

Has anyone ever been involved in a contested will?  My wife's grandpa died in the fall and he ended up leaving almost everything to his new wife.  Her grandma died about 7 or 8 years ago in her early 90s, but the old guy (about 89 at the time) still had some gas in the tank and within about a year started dating a woman in her late 70s.  Within about another year he had moved her in and they got married pretty quickly later.  

Fast forward to today and he left her all his money and possessions, and he left his house (waterfront with a dock on the Sunshine Coast) to his (2) children with the caveat that his new wife can live there "for the rest of her day".  The house is still full of all the stuff from his 70 years of marriage to his first wife including a lot of nice artwork, personal diaries, a portfolio of his work (he was an architect), etc.  She is refusing to give them back anything.  She is also not much older than my wife's dad and aunt so if she lives a long life I might end up being her fucking landlord before this is all over.  To make this sting even more she had her own beachfront property where she lived when he met her.  She had been married herself and got all her first husband's shit.  There might have been another one too.  I checked BC Assessment and it shows that she sold it for 1.7 million 3 years ago, so she has plenty of her own cash and she set her own kids up with the money to buy property for themselves after the sale apparently.  I wish I believed in the afterlife because I would love to see the beat-down dumb bastard would get from Grandma.

My wife's dad has talked to his lawyer and is saying that it isn't worth it to go after her, but this woman is pissing him off more by the day so he might decide to still.  Has anyone seen anything like this?  It would seem to me that they would have a decent case to at least get her out of the house.  She has money and they are losing money by the day by not being able to rent it out or sell it.  The stupid horny old man basically gave another family a small fortune and this woman is living a carefree life 2 doors down from my father-in-law.  I have no idea how he keeps his composure.

Hmm, her behaviour sounds somewhat similar to my step grandmother. While I do not know the details as it came through my parents who dealt with her after my Grandad died in 2002.

Do you feel like you should be contesting the whole will or just parts of it? Im not an expert in the field by any means, but if he had a will that clearly outlines what you have stated, I think that contesting it would be problematic and expensive. I have no idea how it works having your aunt and uncle as the named owners, but she gets to live in it as long as she wants. That's a tough one.

The passing on of wealth due to inheritance can be a terrible thing when family/friends get greedy and start fighting over money or assets. IMHO the only sane way to look at it is with the point of view of expecting nothing when parents or other family members who have wealth pass away. If you get anything at all it's just a nice windfall. It was the man's money and his choice what to do with it.

As this woman was legally married to grandpa and survives him there's nothing you can do. From a satirical pov the best you can hope for is incessant vicious arguing over the house causes her so much stress she drops early from a heart attack. The caveat is that you will make yourself miserable in the process.

Ooof, that sounds rough. Was their relationship always adversarial, or has it just deteriorated since the grandfather passed? If it hasn't always been adversarial, the best way to get what you want is to try and mend fences and appeal to her directly. Reach out and mention that you're willing to come and pick anything up that she would like to dispose of...etc.  

Great example of lazy will writing. I'm sure the grandfather had no intention of depriving his kids of heirlooms, but that may ultimately be the result of this.

He was very old, I would wonder if he was of sound mind. An angle I saw a little. It’s a legit point of view. Seems to me that she has displayed a pattern which may not put her in the best light.

When the original owner of the company I work for passed, a couple of his trusted guys in the office had previously  conned him into changing his will. (Multi million dollar company). His granddaughter challenged his will and won. I would certainly be reaching out to lawyers.

Posted by: FLATCH

He was very old, I would wonder if he was of sound mind. An angle I saw a little. It’s a legit point of view. Seems to me that she has displayed a pattern which may not put her in the best light.

When the original owner of the company I work for passed, a couple of his trusted guys in the office had previously conned him into changing his will. (Multi million dollar company). His granddaughter challenged his will and won. I would certainly be reaching out to lawyers.

You could use the competency angle here, especially given the age. And you could argue the will was changed under duress...hard to prove since he is dead but given the short tenure of the relationship I would look at this. The fact she was in the relationship for so little time and go so much is suspicious. Happens all the time but if you really want it you are going to have to fight.

Any idea where the will was drawn up? Maybe the ligitory could help here????? Gold diggers are everywhere and know how to get what they want. Shitty but this is not new.

Just a side note:  my mother died of clear malpractice.  Had the lawyers and autopsy report that was MORE than damning.  But the fact was:  my mother was an older person and her value (to be alive) was not nearly what a younger woman would have had (gotta love lawyering).  No point in litigation despite the fact it was the most CLEAR CUT CASE of malpractice the firm had ever seen.  Had it been in the USA.....

Good Luck but be prepared.....

when you marry or divorce your old will is nul and void assuming you had one

locally a stupid neighbor kid is all screwed up over her father re-marrying an old GF from highschool and dieing, so she lost out on the house  but she was a dumb ass so i don't have much sympathy for her

and her dad should have talked to her as in " hey i got stage 4 cancer and i'm going to die "

Posted by: XXX_er

when you marry or divorce your old will is nul and void 

Cereals? I did not know this. Might make things interesting.....

Posted by: three-sheets

Posted by: XXX_er

when you marry or divorce your old will is nul and void

Cereals? I did not know this. Might make things interesting.....

nope. quick google suggests this changed in 2014.

IANAL

The new Wills, Estates and Succession Act (WESA), which came into force on March 31, 2014, is the governing law for estate matters. Prior to WESA, the law provided that marriage would automatically revoke your existing will; that is, unless you had provided otherwise in the Will. Essentially, the former law assumed that people’s testamentary intentions changed with their marital status.

In contrast, WESA has changed this. If you have an existing Will prior to getting married, it now continues to be a valid Will after marriage.

Posted by: Couch_Surfer

nope. quick google suggests this changed in 2014.

IANAL

I'm at work and hesitant to click that link.

IANAL = I am not a lawyer  :)

Just links to an LLP site explaining some BC Estate law.

Posted by: shoreboy

Do you feel like you should be contesting the whole will or just parts of it? Im not an expert in the field by any means, but if he had a will that clearly outlines what you have stated, I think that contesting it would be problematic and expensive. I have no idea how it works having your aunt and uncle as the named owners, but she gets to live in it as long as she wants. That's a tough one.

I don't really know what my FIL should do, but he was already resigned to the fact she was taking his money.  I think they just expected that she would be a good person and give them their heirlooms but she told them no.  So now he is mad and I can't blame him.

Posted by: syncro

The passing on of wealth due to inheritance can be a terrible thing when family/friends get greedy and start fighting over money or assets. IMHO the only sane way to look at it is with the point of view of expecting nothing when parents or other family members who have wealth pass away. If you get anything at all it's just a nice windfall. It was the man's money and his choice what to do with it.

As this woman was legally married to grandpa and survives him there's nothing you can do. From a satirical pov the best you can hope for is incessant vicious arguing over the house causes her so much stress she drops early from a heart attack. The caveat is that you will make yourself miserable in the process.

The thing is that nobody was fighting over money in the family, but everyone feels like she has been malicious, including me. She is keeping really personal items for no apparent reason. Legally it was all his to do with as he pleased, but to the family, it was the accumulation of wealth from a lifetime with grandma and she was the money manager that made it all happen. She told everyone before she died how good it made her feel knowing that their money would go to help her grandchildren. It was known that he had changed his will before he died and they told him to his face that he was giving another family everything but he insisted on making this grand gentlemanly gesture and became a real asshole to everyone for a while. He even wrote a scathing letter to all the grandchildren saying they were gold diggers when none of them had even said anything about it. My brother-in-law was happy for him to find new love but still got the letter. He was an idiot, plain and simple. It really seemed like he was having a change of heart near the end too, but she had access to him on lockdown. She wouldn't even let the hospital answer questions from the family about his condition. It all had to go through her. When we visited the hospital one of the doctors even brought it up and apologized for her actions.

I don't have much skin in the game. I suppose it would trickle down my way when my in-laws passed, but everyone in that family gets close to 100 before they die so my MIL will likely outlive me. LOL

IMO, she is a whore and I would like to see some financial pain inflicted on her for what she is doing. She lives in my home town and it is really small. She can thank me later for the cold stares she will be getting when she is out for groceries because I still know everyone there.