Estate Claims Lawyer in Redcliffe

Later-life relationships on the peninsula create families where the person left out is a step-relation or a partner the will never mentioned.

Eligibility is a threshold question. The Succession Act's categories reach a spouse, which includes a de facto partner in defined circumstances, a child, a stepchild in defined circumstances, and a dependant. Falling outside them means there is no claim, whatever the merits; falling inside them means the claim is then decided on the facts.

A new will is made in hospital or in care, often with one family member's help, and it departs sharply from the previous one.

A challenge to validity says the will should not stand, on grounds such as lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, lack of knowledge and approval, or defective signing and witnessing. It is a different proceeding from a provision claim, decided on evidence about the will-maker and the circumstances of signing rather than about anyone's needs.

The executor lives in the house, or wants to buy it, or simply does not want to deal with siblings who disagree with them.

An executor has duties to the beneficiaries: to get in the estate, to account for it and to administer it without unreasonable delay. Where those duties collide with the executor's own interest, the beneficiaries may apply to the Supreme Court of Queensland to review the administration or to remove the executor.

The executor who has been served is usually a spouse or a sibling of the claimant, and the instinct is to treat the claim as an attack.

A family provision claim is decided in the court's discretion on the claimant's needs, the size of the estate, the relationship and any competing claims. The estate's job is to put the will-maker's reasons and the competing claims properly before the mediator, not to win an argument. The parties are generally required to attempt mediation before a final hearing, and most claims settle there.

A house held for forty years at Scarborough or Woody Point is the estate, and one child has lived in it, cared for a parent in it, or simply cannot bear to see it sold.

Provision cannot be carved out of one house without a sale, a buy-out or a refinance, and the executor cannot resolve the standoff alone. Contributions such as care are relevant to a provision claim, but they do not give anyone a right to the house.

Grief, distance and family pressure not to "cause trouble" mean many peninsula claimants seek advice late.

As a general rule written notice should reach the executor within six months of death and the application be filed within nine. The court has a discretion to allow a late application, but it is a discretion exercised on the facts, and if the estate has already been lawfully distributed the position is materially harder.