Undue influence can be a major cause of estate litigation. It essentially means that someone else altered the will or estate plan, but they did not do so directly. They did it by manipulating the person who is writing that plan, causing them to alter it in that beneficiary’s favor.
If you believe this has happened, you may have legal steps you can take to challenge the will and protect the inheritance that you deserve. After all, undue influence can have a significant impact on how assets and family heirlooms get split up when someone passes away.
How does it occur?
Undue influence can occur in a variety of ways, but consider an example where a parent has two children. One child still lives near home, perhaps in the same town where they grew up. The other child has moved to a different state or even a different country, seeking educational or career opportunities.
As the elderly parent gets older, the child who lives near home becomes a caregiver. This puts them into a position of power. Their parent needs them to provide assistance and care around the house, to help them take medications, to take them to doctors’ appointments, and to handle other daily needs.
It could be undue influence if the child who is the caregiver threatens to withhold this care unless the will is altered in their favor. Say that the inheritance was supposed to be split 50-50 between both adult children, but the caregiver demands that they are actually given 80% of the inheritance, believing this is fair because of the time and effort they have put into caring for their parent while their sibling is away.
In other words, a will needs to be written without outside manipulation or coercion, and it may be challengeable if it is shown that the person drafting the document was inappropriately influenced by a beneficiary. If you are in this position, you need to know what legal steps to take.