Why Most Wills Never Get Contested

I would say part of my practice is litigation, a lot of it. So, we see a lot of the will contesting, but I think overall maybe I would say 20 to 30% of wills are actually contested. A lot of people talk about contesting them, but when it comes down to actually doing it, that's a whole other ball of wax. It takes time, it takes money. You've got to have a foot in the door.

And I have found a lot of people that approach us about contesting a will, it's because they don't like the contents. It's not necessarily the validity, maybe the person who created its capacity; they don't have any of those concerns. They just feel like, "Hey, I don't think this is what this person would have done."

And then also, like we've talked about on previous episodes, sometimes there's a timing element to it. Of course, if it was done close to the time of death, we always want to take an extra look at that. The attorneys like to drill down and make sure everything was done right, but it's not uncommon for people to kind of make changes last minute when they've maybe been given a diagnosis, they've been given, you know, an approximate time. People really start to reflect and think. And we've seen some changes happen. So, that's kind of what we've seen here.