WILL WRANGLES

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 May 1937, Page 10

WILL WRANGLES

SHOULD LAW BE AMENDED?

Like breach-of-promise actions, disputed will cases, which are increasing in number, might well receive the attention of Parliament. For every will cash tried, there are a score settled out of Court ,and legal beneficiaries in wills have undoubtedly a genuine grievance in the great majority of these privately arranged settlements, says Arthur Armstrong in an English journal. Even when they fight the claim in open Court, the legal expenses of the defence are always very heavy. Cases, have been known where, after a successful rebuttal of the charges, the heirs of the disputed estate have been saddled with costs which swallowed up half its total value. As the law stands at present, anyone is free —if he is a near relative of the deceased, .or a friend in whose favour a previous will was drawn up —to put a claim in alleging that the. final will was signed when the testator was not in a lit mental state to know what was being done. Or it may be alleged that threats were used to induce the signature. Since the great majority of persons who die leaving wealth behind them are elderly, such charges are not easily refuted. Many rich old people have eccentricities of behaviour which can, plausibly enough, be twisted into symptoms of insanity or mental decay.

So many claims are settled before they reach the Courts because beneficiaries are unwilling to expose in public the intimate domestic life of the deceased and themselves, or decide to compromise rather* than risk losing the whole estate. It would surprise the general public to know how much of this goes on behind the scenes. The wills of many wealthy men have been challenged in this way by interested parties who have been successful in getting considerable sums, in private, from the estates concerned. Obviously, no one desires to see injustice done to any person who has a legitimate grievance. Many rich people, when they get on in years, do become eccentric and are apt to come under the influence of dominating persons, with disastrous results.

HYPNOTIC SPELLS. No doubt many wills which astonish and dismay the families of the deceased are made when the testators are in a weak mental state, or under what is virtually a hypnotic spell To prove complete insanity, however, is extremely difficult. If not iihpostable, so long as the testator is outside a, mental home; and hypnotism, although tin established reality, will rarely be recognised by a. British Court in a. will dispute.

As the law stands at present, persons can bo robbed of money which is justly duo to them, as a. result of the excesivo freedom given to individuals in making their wills. Anyone can make a will in his own handwriting, and, if he signs it in the presence of two witnesses who also put their signatures to the document in his presence, it. is a valid will. It might well be considered whether this procedure should not be re-, viewed. t

For people living in remote purls, of the world, it is valuable, but it is ] questionable if the privilege should be given to persons to whom proles-' sional advice is easily available. The best way to reduce tht 1 number of disputed will cases might be to make a doctor’s signature or two doctors' signatures compulsory on all wills. These would certify that the willmaker was in ;1 lit and proper stale to know what he or she was doing. This would prove beyond the slight-,

est shadow of a doubt that at the time' the terms of the will were road over. | the person who signed it was in a 1 clear mental state. Wills made in a ■ semi-drunken condition, or under. 1 lineals, or when the mind was going i in- sione. would then quickly becomei thing of the past. So would a large number of probate

cases in the Courts, and while., perhaps, the legal profession would suffer, a largo and important class in the country would bo freed from the threat of unpleasant, and expensive Itigation.