I've heard if all children aren't mentioned in a will, they can contest it?

Rain mom when I lived in a different area the vultures descended on a lovely lovely older man (my domino partner at the time). He was 90 odd and simply put he was dying from a broken heart. His wife died the day after their 70th anniversary and he simply lost the will to go on. he had no children his siblings were all dead and then the nephews and nieces came out of the woodwork. Whilst we the local community had always looked after him since his wife died. Between us we fed him did his laundry and cleaned for him - all for free because in his time he had paid forward too. Then in they swooped - we weren't allowed to bring him apple crumble, or plum cake or cottage pie. The jars of home made jams were left on the doorstep or put in the bin. No-one except family was allowed to visit and while at the time there was no law we all knew he must be very very lonely and missing his friends.

He was taken into hospital (where we could all visit - Hilarious when we held a domino tournament in his private room!) He rallied for a while then eventually he died on the very day his wife had two years previously.

The funeral was incredibly simple give that we knew he had wanted the two black horses and to be 'walked out' of the village he had spent his entire life in. It didn't matter .... the streets were lined with people and while it was two black cars it was dignified. The funeral was standing room only and although he had always wanted to be buried next to his wife the family arranged a cremation.

The villagers were in uproar but of course nothing they could do. As you can imagine there was a sizeable estate and come the day of the will reading, the family all arrived at the solicitor's office alongside one other person - his best friend of about 40 years, who had been there thick and thin for his buddy.

I can't remember how many nieces and nephews there were but about 8. Apparently they were all given an envelope as was his friend.

His friend's letter said something along the lines of...... You have always been there for me and we have been through good and bad and come through smiling and I thank you for that. I want you to have my cars. You can sell them and enjoy your life or keep them and enjoy your life but whatever you do enjoy your life....remember our motto? You're a long time dead! Goodbye my friend

He had owned 5 perfectly restored vintage cars worth an astronomical amount which he and this friend had restored together.

To his nieces and nephews. Inside the envelope was a crisp £10 note and a letter that said something like. This money should be taken to the pet shop to buy food to feed the birds. You are all vultures and will not benefit one more penny from my estate. You have never visited in 30 years and it was too late after the death of my wife when you couldn't even move yourselves to come to her funeral.

The rest of the estate was sold in its entirety and the money given to 3 favourite charities - the amount? oh a minor amount really ....about £2 million!

They had no redress and no right to contend because a) he had left them money and b) had left a letter. That didn't stop them. They contended en masse and to the vast amusement of the village LOST en masse

I am probably in the minority here but I think a person has a right - providing they were competent at the time the decision was made - to will their assets to whom ever they choose. It may seem wrong to those left out, and perhaps even to the sole beneficiary but the money was hers to do with what she wished. If people were nice to her and did things to help her hopefully it was what they wanted to do or felt was the right thing to do, rather than doing it for a slice of the inheritance. Unless other promises or arrangments were made she owed no one and no one owed her. Also, unless the will was recently changed as in once mom arrived at the sons home or if there is reasonable cause to suspect him of unduly pressuring mom to name him - then it will be a bitter pill to swallow. It does say something - only the family knows what - that it seems it was never moms intention to split the money among all or even a couple of the siblings - as her will prior to the change also only named a sole beneficiary until the "falling out". Would he be in the doghouse as well if the will still named him? As for giving away her things and not calling siblings...I'm thinking there is probably a back story to dysfunctional family dynamics that are not included in this post.

RainMom, I agree that there's probably a long backstory to this situation if the Will was changed 25 years ago to exclude all but the one heir. I think there's much more to this situation than meets the eye.

Thank you palmtrees for your heartfelt response. Only someone who has lived through similar experience truly understands the emotional pain of dealing with an unloving heartless mother. The first time I met her, my husband and I had gone for a visit before we were married so I could meet his family. I was in my early 20's and I left with the impression that she had no love to give, and I felt very sorry for my husband's two sisters having to grow up with a mother like her. My husband and his brothers were heavily involved in sports so they spent a lot of time away from home involved in that. They were closer to their football coach than they were to their own father, who was totally disinterested in them, but took great interest in the youngest son. The daughters were home a lot more and I think suffered more with their iceberg of a mother. She didn't even introduce any of them to her father (their maternal grandfather) or 4 of her 5 siblings. They lived in a different state, but my husband has never met any of his uncles, only the one aunt.

I think I will work toward bringing the family together by talking up a reunion next summer in their hometown. That way their mother could look up from where she is (in hell??) and see her happily married children, their kids and grandkids and see that her family still lives on and loves eachother in spite of her best efforts to destroy it. That would be poetic justice for her and testament to the power of love and kindness. She gave us lemons...so we make lemonade!!

Rain mom, what you said about splitting your inheritance with your middle brother really hit home with me. My mother put my brother as beneficiary on about 700,000.00 worth of bank accounts. He flipped out when he saw her accounts and told her he was giving me half of everything so make it easy on him and just add me to the accounts. She did what he asked just a month before she died. He convinced her that he would have a big tax problem, yada, yada. And she did it for him.But you are right, I have had no peace as to her intentions and why she would be so mean and cruel to me.

Mom was a narcissist. I was the scapegoat. I had to distance myself for emotional reasons and this was her punishment. As my brother told me, "mom is into pout and punish".

I will have to live with the notion that my mother didn't love me enough to make sure I was part of the family and got an equal share.

I don't agree that people should do whatever they want with their assets. We all leave a legacy to our families. What would you want yours to be?

You state that both Wills and a Trust were in existence, and that the house was funded into the Trust. Was the house the only asset in the Trust, or were other assets, including financial ones, funded into the Trust as well?

The Will should be a Pour-Over Will, linking to the Trust, which establishes who the heirs are. You should try to get a copy of the Trust, to determine if in fact it only covers the house or covers more of her assets, as well as to confirm your understanding of the named heirs.

I was wondering since the Will was changed so long ago whether the Trust was created at the same time, or later. If later, the Will should have been redone to create a Pour-Over Will.

If you do file suit to contest the bequests, I think you'll have to prove undue influence as the basis for your challenge. Start gathering data that supports that premise.

When you get a copy of the Trust, and the Pour-Over Will, read it to see if there's an in terrorem clause, which provides that anyone who contests the will will either (a) inherit a limited amount, or (b) inherit nothing.

Until you see the Trust, you can't conclude for sure that the bequests are as you've written in your post. It's worth it to check it out.

RainMom, since the first will would have been revoked when the second was created, the challenge would have to be to the second choice beneficiary's selection.

I think the point of contention is that the siblings feel their mother's estate should have justly been divided between all of the siblings, rather than just the second choice son, and that perhaps there was undue influence by him. But what was it?

I totally agree that undue influence is going to be hard, if not impossible, to prove. There's so much disconnect from the MIL that I don't know how anyone could really factually document and prove what influence the second son might have had.

What I find sad is the history of the daughter who attempted to help her mother but literally was pushed out into the cold. The MIL clearly wanted to disinherit all but the one son; it must hurt the other siblings but I think prolonging it is only going to cause more frustration and hurt.

Thank you as well, GardenArtist...it posted while I was writing my comment above. You are probably right about the will, but our thinking is we could contest it on the grounds that the other 4 siblings were not mentioned at all, so the court could declare the will invalid and dividing the estate as if there were no will at all, which would mean each of the 5 children would get an equal share. But there is still the Trust, which owns the house, so I think it is probably a losing battle. A good lawyer would have advised her to list each of her children by name willing them $1 to preclude any question of their exclusion. Anyway, the worst part for my husband has been the betrayal of his brother duping him into spending days working on their mother's house under the guise of "helping mom", all the while knowing he was going to be the sole owner after she died. This officially ends his relationship with his brother, who my husband had forgiven when he had done him wrong earlier in life, but in the end he just couldn't help being the greedy money grubbing scumbag he has always been. Moral of the story "When someone shows you who they are, believe them!!

ThereIsNoTry...thanks for your suggestion and you're right, but unfortunately undue influence - as common as it is in real life - is very hard to prove in court. We don't have recordings of their private conversations, or his manipulative tactics over the years. We can't prove what happened behind the scenes. I think it would be a very costly and uphill battle to challenge both documents. I hate to get involved with lawyers unless it's a pretty sure bet that we could win, which in this case is a longshot at best. Any time we have hired attorneys in the past for business matters they seem to do a lot more billing than actual work. But they're more than happy to engage in a long, expensive futile fight even though they know the probable outcome - it's all about the $$$ for them. So I think my husband and I have concluded that because the estate's main asset (the house) is owned by the trust, and fav brother is successor trustee of the trust, that is pretty rock solid and probably couldn't be overthrown in court. Even if the Will was declared invalid due to failure to list all the siblings, the fact would remain that he controls the trust that owns the house, which is the only valuable asset of her estate. Both the will and the trust date back to 1992, so it's not like we could claim she was influenced by him in the last few months or even years of her life. I think we just have to accept it for what it is...it is what she wanted. It was her final despicable act to disown and disrespect all but one of her children. That's how she rolled in life, and in death as well.

Thank you both - Daughter and kdcm - for your kind responses and sharing your similar MIL experiences. Daughter, what you say about learning from our uncaring MIL how to be a good MIL...I have thought a lot about that in the past few weeks and that I should learn the lessons of how NOT to conduct myself as a MIL to my son's wife and my daughter's husband. I think the secret to being a good MIL is to not be selfish - think about others instead of putting ourselves first. My heart breaks for my one SIL that lives about 10 mi from MIL's house (her mother). She did all she could to help her, taking care of her when she was sick and after she broke her hip. She was trying to make arrangements to have a full-time caregiver at MIL's home during the daytime and she would stay with her overnight because she still works days. She was the last to know (and the most shocked to find out) that her mother was willing everything to the brother that was 1200 mi away all this time!! For the past 23 years both MIL and her son knew this, and kept it secret from the rest of the family. Such a betrayal of everyone's trust. For her entire life this SIL lived nearby and gave selflessly gave her time and love to her mother. That is the part I just can't get over. Throughout their lives SIL's loving kids and grandkids surrounded MIL and tried to include her in their lives and in celebrations. I would see pics posted on Facebook as recently as a few weeks before MIL's death, of their smiling faces surrounding MIL (who always looked miserable) and I would think: so much love and joy surrounding a person with a black heart that doesn't appreciate any of them. So this is weighing heavily on my heart today as I think about what my SIL must be going through. How could a mother hurt their daughter any more than that? So sorry for both of you that you have to endure the pain of dealing with an uncaring MIL. We can only hope that we will do much better and be the MILs we wish we had!! Hugs to you both.