Challenging your stepmother’s inheritance
Case study of a daughter’s inheritance claim against her father’s estate after he left everything to her stepmother. For further information about challenging your stepmother’s inheritance call the experts. We offer a free case assessment service and no win, no fee funding. Call 0333 888 0407 or email us at [email protected]
We recently represented a daughter in a successful Inheritance Act claim against her late father’s estate after she had been excluded from his will which left everything to her stepmother.
The background to the dispute is that after enjoying a very close relationship with her father the daughter became estranged from him when he remarried. She felt that their relationship particularly suffered as a result of the influence of her stepmother.
When her father died the stepmother inherited the whole estate, the daughter receiving nothing at all. Furthermore, the stepmother had already made arrangements for her own son to inherit everything when she died.
The daughter felt this was very unfair and contacted us about challenging her stepmother’s inheritance. We told her that she was entitled to make an Inheritance Act claim for a share of her father’s estate. She asked us to go ahead with the claim and we agreed to deal with it on a no win, no fee basis.
The claim was successful and an out of court settlement was reached during lockdown at ‘virtual mediation’ using Zoom. The settlement of the inheritance dispute gave the daughter a six figure settlement, including payment of her legal costs.