Unfortunately, sometimes family members or friends take advantage of your loved one and manipulate them into changing their will or trust, intentionally interfering with your inheritance. The realization that this happened can be devastating. It is an attack on your family’s legacy and can have a significant impact on your financial future.
Intentional interference with an inheritance, also called tortious interference with an inheritance, can affect anyone without warning. While it is relatively uncommon, the passing of the Boomer Generation has increased the frequency. Intentional interference is similar to a will or trust contest, but there are some crucial differences. It is also essential to understand how a promise to make a will factors into these situations.
At Gokal Law Group, we have helped countless beneficiaries like you defend and receive their rightful inheritance when someone tries to block them from receiving it. Here’s what to know about intentional interference and how we can help.
What is Intentional Interference with an Inheritance?
Intentional interference with an inheritance or gift occurs when a beneficiary or other party knowingly and purposely blocks a beneficiary from receiving their inheritance or gift.
Typically, it occurs when the perpetrator uses fraud, duress, coercion, or other means to manipulate your elderly family member into altering their estate plan. They may even tamper with or destroy estate planning documents. The result is that one or more beneficiaries receive a smaller or no share of an estate.
Filing an intentional interference claim is different from contesting a will, which revolves around the capacity of the person who made the will. Unlike a will contest, which takes place in probate court, tortious interference with an inheritance is a civil lawsuit.
You can file this type of claim if you were an intended beneficiary who lost part or all of your inheritance to a third party, and you can pursue monetary damages after the estate’s closing. Intentional interference can look like:
- Fraud: A relative convinces someone that their child should not be in their will using false pretenses.
- Coercion: A child threatens to stop providing elder care or paying for hospice unless their parent agrees to remove their sibling from a will.
- Concealment: One beneficiary hides or destroys a will to prevent another beneficiary from receiving their inheritance.
- Undue influence: A caregiver creates a replacement will and convinces the person they are caring for to sign it.
- Defamation: One beneficiary shares false statements about another beneficiary to convince someone to write them out of the will.
- Theft: A trustee illegally takes assets intended for a beneficiary from the trust.
A person can intentionally interfere with insurance proceeds, retirement plans, property titles, and more. When a third party interferes in this capacity, they could be held liable. The deprived party could seek damages in the form of the inheritance they would have received, legal fees, and punitive damages.
If you are dealing with intentional interference and have been deprived of your rightful inheritance, contacting a probate litigation attorney is crucial. They can advise you on your best course of action, which may be a tortious interference lawsuit.
Related Article: An Overview of Probate Beneficiary Rights
Intentional Interference and the Promise to Make a Will
One situation that can complicate these conflicts is if tortious interference with an inheritance or gift occurs after the decedent has promised to make a will. A promise to make a will is a declaration by someone that they intend to leave specific property or assets to someone in their will. These promises can become legally binding. If there is such a promise and then another person intentionally interferes with this promised inheritance, an incredibly complex legal situation is created. It requires a high level of detailed legal analysis to unwind the harm caused by greed, fraud, and trickery.
The promise to make a will could still serve as evidence in a case of intentional interference with an inheritance if that promise was broken as a result of undue influence or other underhanded acts.
“Intentional interference claims may be a key pathway in righting a wrong and reinstate promised inheritances. It is important to remember that this claim may still exist even after an estate closes. With a normal will contest, there is a strict time frame within which you have to file. But that window could be extended with this type of lawsuit.”
– Nicholas D. Porrazzo, Partner, Gokal Law Group
Do You Need Help Holding a Third-Party Accountable for Intentional Interference with an Inheritance? We Can Help.
When someone commits intentional interference with an inheritance and prevents you from receiving your rightful inheritance, this loss can undermine your financial future and effort to move on from the emotionally charged chapter that follows losing a loved one. But you don’t have to sit idly by and watch your inheritance slip away. With a trusted probate litigation attorney on your side, you can rest assured that you can safeguard your rightful inheritance.
Visit our Contact page to schedule a consultation.
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One Response
My half brother and his (already disciplined and suspended for same or similar conspiracy) has , over a decade , with guidance from attorney , stolen documents, coerced fire sales of family stick , harassed , coerced bullied and used a special needs trust for our sick sister to get the named Bennes to sign – the attorney – and I asked – said ‘no sequels to this whatsoever. It’s been a nightmare so appalling that I’m hesitant to talk about it— no j e would believe me they attorney and my brother know that I know . They’ve now had mother . A lifetime interest income beneficiary— sign a will contravening 4 irrevocable trusts in which I am named and are to terminate on mother’s death . She lacks power of appointment to create a new trust and further she would never do that. The new new will states that I am not to marry, that my half sob is my trustee forever , and that at his sole discretion I may receive funds for a private room — for my comfort — in a mental institution and that I may have plastic surgery. It’s absurd . They’re both 67 year old boys who’ve never had any consequences and they both, unfortunately, are obsessed with myself and asserting dominance and control over me so they can torment me at will . The attorney is a trick box lawyer – clever , but insufferably boastful and spiteful— 30 years ago he hunted me like an animal for the purpose of effecting a marriage . Thought he’d wear me out . I moved away . It’s a very sick situation, and dangerous. My brother is trustee o an ILIT that he wouldn’t account for, so , as a remainder man I contacted trans America occidental – he’s spent a couple million And indebted me another half million . Short selling no doubt cheered on by the gargoyles at Merrill lynch indiana is where we are . I can’t afford to fight with them anymore. They bill moms accounts and every attorney I’ve hired is harassed , lied to , threatened with professional misconduct and they quit . No one wants this . Curtis Shirley is the atys name . I call him Kim Jong. He’s a disgrace to the law, he’s a danger to the public, and he’s manipulated my already paranoid brother to the extent that I fear for my life . Any suggestion is welcome