Being sued...

[pattieG]

To cut a long story short I, along with my siblings am being sued over a will.

Now the person doing the suing is my father who believes his mother was unduly influenced into changing her will to name me and my siblings as beneficiaries. He has informed us that his serving of proceedings on us is just a technicality in his efforts to have the existing will put aside. He has informed us that we do not need to do anything and no response will be required by us. This follows on from his request previously that we defer our claim in his favour. Two of my siblings were not happy to do this so he is now doing the latter.

My question is:

I assume there will be a court date for the proceedings and if we do not attend any judgement will go in his favour. Does this mean that we will be waiving our claim on the estate?

I know we should get advice from a lawyer but TBH none of us can really afford.

Thanks in advance.

[pattieG]

My fathers reason for doing this is because of a long running feud with his brother. He believes that my uncle coerced their mother into changing her will to exclude him in our favour. He's doing this because in his eyes him being precluded from the will means his mother didn't love him when he died. Am I right in my assumption that if I do not respond to the court papers then judgement automatically goes in his favour?

[pattieG]

DanL said:

k, deep seated feeling will be tied up in this one. I don't know how much money is involved, or what your relationship with your father is, but you need to consider what you want as the outcome.

There will be people who can tell you whether you might win or lose, and that's good. There will be people who will give you opinions on the morality of each side, and that's fine too. What I'm going to do is point out the obvious: if you contest this with your father, it's very likely that it will ruin your relationship with him given that this seems to be tied in with whether his mother loved him or not!

If your relationship is already awful, or you don't care about it because you want the money, then by all means fight him. If not, be aware that this might cause irreparable damage to your relationship - for him, at the end it won't even be about the money but about proving some point to the world.

You've hit the nail on the head with how I feel about the situation. I don't want to ruin my relationship with my Father but equally I don't want to fall out with my siblings as this is unfortunately becoming a "sides" thing.

Just for all the curious people the exact amount is unknown but possibly around £40K.

[pattieG]

He say it is part of the proceedings against his brother to serve the rest of the beneficiaries as well. The Approximate amount mentioned earlier is what I and my siblings would each receive.