For the nay-sayers

This is a site for the disinherited. A place to represent them, their story, their side. So many sites caution about the pain of disinheritance, and caution about making big considerations before you do because it is the last words your children will ever hear. But who sees these sites? Who gets this advice? I am not sure it is always the testators that do, and often it will be the children after being disinherited that see it. And they’ll wonder why such logic wasn’t a safety net for their parents’ work, for their, maybe rightful, inheritance?

As you may guess I am a disinherited. Well not really as that is a poor of choice of words as excluded is more apt. Disinherited is an act of commission, whereas exclusion is simply an act of omission. Often the case with omission to most folk, is sometimes simply forgetfulness or inconsiderate measures. I am sure each of us determines the more active people who say something rude or cruel different from those who forget to say something nice as different groups. I’ll post my story on another part, but I think there is a need for representation of this group. A place of support, a place of questioning the resounding logic and laws, a place to question the resounding support of the freedom (and with great power comes great responsibility) of choice to do this.

But the strange thing is for all the cautionary tales of prevention for this, the aftermath has little support for those disinherited. It claims it can be contested if there was an issue of mental incapacitation (but if the person had moment of lucidity at the time of the Will or anything post it isn’t admissible – so basically they have to be coocoo for cocoa puffs for this to be a really good case to take to court) or they have to be in duress at the time of writing the Will (but how realistic was this since there are often no parties – other than those duressing – present?) So you can have really good evidence of mitigating circumstances but unless they are full-proof, really, really sound arguments – no grey areas – then you’ll spend more than you have and years of pain fighting it.

This seems rather strange to me. Considering all the advice – good advice about how this affects people – that there is this huge disparity of legal requirements pre-Will and post-Will. It’s as easy as pie to exclude or disinherit, but so very difficult to contest.

Yet the circumstances about Will writing can be rather sketchy. Don’t believe me? Think that it can only be sour grapes that causes a person to contest a Will? I mean hey, the other resounding logics, post-Will are:

1.  You probably did something to warrant this and if you had a separation from your parent, this is the result of this. Which is so very insulting and rather ridiculous that I almost don’t want to address it but I will…during this. There are hundreds of stories in which these ‘disinherited’ never had an estranged relationship with the parent – how insulting, and cruel, to insinuate to those grieving people, that their now deceased loved one did this because of some past argument? They are at a loss as to why this happened, and someone with little knowledge and little study into the thousands of stories out there has claimed that this is the most logical result. It’s cruel and it’s foolhardy as it isn’t the majority of the situations, and often those grieving people out there lost out, simply because someone else found the loophole to profit. They’ve been hurt too many times with the loss of their loved one, the injustice of some profiting person benefiting, and now to be insulted by an unresearched claim to make them feel guilty if there was ever any argument or disappointment their parent had in them (like this doesn’t happen to every child and parent) but once you’re the disinherited, or excluded, how do you fight this cruel assertion – even to yourself? It’s a negligent writer who maintains that assumption.

2. Everyone has the right to distribute their wealth as they see fit, and you never had the money – so it was never yours to feel upset about. The idea of children inheriting is a thing of the past and it is better to assume there will be nothing for you, than to assume and be disappointed. Again this seems a naïve approach, as I’ll get into. 

So how can there be so much advice, so much knowledge and experience going into assisting people about considering disinheriting, which says it is rather important, rather confusing for your children, rather painful but on the other side, once the Will is read – all of that logic goes out the window. If the parent did consider the pain they caused, well no court, no site actually says now that the person has passed that they may have done something wrong. How many elderly people see the internet sites out there with the advice, the counsel? Where is the connection between education and prevention and the too often painful, costly, disproportionate result? How are we trying to prevent mistakes? The prior advice, which may never be seen by a parent, could possibly help thousands of people – but it is left on a child to prove this was the case, and they are doing it by proxy to a deceased individual! Why if we want individuals to have the freedom, are we not ensuring they are educated or kept from harming themselves and others? We assist people from getting into too much credit card debt if they cannot understand the ramifications, but a Will that they may not see the ramifications, and there is no support, no safety net. I grasp the need to honor the wishes of the testator, my larger issue is that it might be good to do that when they’re alive, rather than deceased and can’t defend themselves if there is a missing piece. Do we want only laws that allow us to sue those who drink and drive if they cause injury, or would we rather have laws to prevent the injury by assessing when someone is intoxicated at a bar/pub, by friends, by many means before there is an unrecoverable loss as well? The loss of someone’s work because of poor paperwork is a real tragedy to those left picking up the pieces. There are so many legal requirements to contesting, but none to disinheriting or excluding. So what if they made a mistake? Wouldn’t an ounce of prevention be worth a pound of cure?

Now when I refer to a mistake, I know I got the group in 1 & 2 saying this can’t possibly be the case. But we’re talking about humans here. The same humans you see with cynicism as ‘sour grape’ or ‘bad children who were rightfully disinherited’ people, well just because someone wrote a Will and passed away doesn’t suddenly change them from the same poor behaviours in any human being. We all want them to have gone up to heaven (or equivalent) and become angels, I am just not sure that occurred at the time they contemplated their passing. These are the same people who made poor decisions too – married when they got a bit tipsy one night and got it annulled, had a very acrimonious divorce, had an unplanned pregnancy, did unethical or even illegal things. They are the people who got scammed by internet fraud, banking fraud, or paid for a Nigerian prince to be released with a repayment of a huge inheritance at the end. They are the same people who engaged in domestic abuse situations – both a victim or a perpetrator being possibilities. They were prone to all the poor human behaviours ranging from naivety to less salubrious characteristics. So why have we suddenly come to believe that at the time the Will was written, that they were somehow ’different’? That they couldn’t have had a poor influence on them encouraging them to write it that way, they could get bad advice on how to do it, they believed the person would do the right thing, they may have had really poor parenting skills that pushed their children away or they were controlling, and used the Will to control as well? I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, only to add in the realism of human beings and that the issue behind the Will doesn’t have to come down to something the child did wrong to cause this or that their feelings of abandonment because they were disinherited are somehow invalid because they had the audacity to believe in their parent and that inheritance was an eventuality. I mean often the person who did benefit had the same ideas, wishes, even demands, coercion, arguments with the decedent – there was only one distinguishing characteristic which defines one group from the other – they were there at the time of the Will. Their ‘worthiness’ wasn’t bound in wonderful characteristics (remember all of those human characteristics listed above? Same applies to the beneficiary). That may be the only thing that has you not getting an inheritance from your parents and another person getting it, they. were. there. They were more persuasive, they were present at the Will signing. That's all it has to come down to. And it means for each of you with an elderly parent, you could be in the same pot as the rest of us disinherited. You don't have to be in those two main reasons above to be in our group. It's just a fine line of actual injustice, a loophole in the system, a loophole that someone else benefits from and you're in with our group, screaming but I know my parent didn't intend this! My parent talked to me, they only knew the beneficiary for 2 years, they were in an abusive relationship, they had moments of dementia etc. etc. etc. If you've already benefited from your parents, I say good to you - you did well, they did, those around them did. But if anything had fallen out, and for those who are yet to inherit, you are not so far away that this couldn't or won't happen to you. I'd never imagined it. I was close to my parent, I was amicable with their partner - never any argument, not ever! - now I see nothing, I get stonewalling from the partner, I don't even get any ashes. I never thought either of them was capable of this.

And let’s look at the facts, is it more likely that the ‘disinherited’ who got nothing – did something questionable, or the person who benefited? Generally speaking in life, when there is a disparity of all or none, have you most often found that the ‘alls’ have gained it through above-board means or is it just as likely that their gains could be ill-gotten gains, as found in so many scenarios in life? It doesn’t have to be, we don’t have to believe everyone who has been named as beneficiary has gone to the dark side but it doesn’t have to not be either. I just can’t seem to get my head around the cynicism surrounding the disinherited, and none for the beneficiaries who, well, benefited.

Seems a crock a bit then to have a person benefiting simply because they were present, maybe even influencing – as you didn’t because you did believe in your parent, and they lacked the faith and well did a bit more concrete assuring. Yet we have a world after the Will is written stating that this was ok, even legally bound and upheld, support that the beneficiary was named and rightfully so because it had to be the testator’s wishes which caused that eventuality, that the wishes of the testator are sacrosanct – yet it may be the beneficiaries wishes we are reading, and that they must have done something right which has led to their status, and you – the excluded and disinherited – have obviously done something wrong to be in this status or certainly has the wrong idea now to think an injustice has occurred. 

For those still believing this is the right of the testator, and have yet to experience firsthand, you can be one of us…someday. Much as we might like to think that a Will is written in the presence of skilled and educated counsel, much thought and consideration put into it, no influences present which could change it, their whole inventory present to allocate, no mental health issues at hand – it isn’t that way. There are many errors that occur, many that actually do not honor the testator’s wishes. Many testator’s wishes actually get ‘grandfathered’ and never honored and this is legal. One of your parents may want you to have an inheritance, but if they pass it to their partner and by marriage number 2, it gets passed to a non-parent who doesn’t honor either’s wishes, it is their legal right to do this – it’s already lost their wishes. If that partner still passes it to another non-parent who has no connection to the children, both parent’s wishes can be legally ignored. Their whole life’s work goes to strangers and not to their children.

I realise that much psychological advice would encourage those children to see it as ‘not theirs’ to save them pain of many years of resentment and recriminations and there is a validity to this as we wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to ruminate painfully for years over something they cannot change. But on the other side of that, if you got scammed in buying a lemon car (and this is far less personal) you’d have a legal right to fight it and emotional support understanding why you felt this was wrong and why you fought it. But a Will, written by a human being (see above), maybe influenced by a human being (see above), has you lose all the love you felt from your parents and have it go to perfect strangers who benefit from the struggles your parents went through to save up, to work hard, the sacrifices your family went through – maybe as children you scrimped and saved on having tattered clothes, hand-me-down furniture, maybe a Christmas a little less than your friends, all of which you took in stride, you – even as a child – understood the need for sacrifices. But suddenly as an adult, they pass on, they re-marry and someone who never went through those sacrifices, monetises their position – unlike the child - and all that was saved, sacrificed, understood goes to someone who never partook in the before but was there for the after. This happens – and it can be as stark as that or it can have shades all in-between, not everyone has to start out as a total demon. But like loaning money to family and friends, you often see that once given it is really difficult to retrieve and it is the cause of many rifts, some being a bit contrived. I’ve watched people be loaned money for a piece of land by their parents, only to have the parents age and ask to be re-paid because they couldn’t keep working and the person with the loan, of working age, got angry with them like as if it were their money! I know I am using a situation which illustrates a child being bad to the parent, but that’s ok. I didn’t say it had to be one size fits all to these situations (but still that parent hasn’t disinherited). This is to illustrate that once a person is the sole beneficiary, the Will written years ago, the idea that it is all theirs, the years that they live with the estate and it is very easy to forget the original item was a gift, and people, well being people, get rather possessive and defensive if you take away what they believe is theirs (though it was your parent’s either in whole or in part). Once that Will is written and they get used to the idea over years, if there were verbal instructions to the contrary they don’t really want to let go, if there were written instructions years ago they can very easily ‘forget’ that connection or that ‘gift’, it can become ‘theirs’ to do as they wish, and they may not wish that anymore. This is the same logic that is used to negate the children from thinking they had any right, but this may be exactly the logic used by the beneficiary ‘it’s mine’.