CrimeaPRESS reports:
Legal Trend: Courts have become much less likely to revoke wills. Now notes , this can only be done in exceptional cases. According to the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of Russia, 230 wills were annulled in six months of last year.
A few years ago, there were thousands of cancellations every year. Experts called the so-called post-mortem psychiatric examinations a natural disaster — when a person was declared incompetent after death. Accordingly, the will was cancelled.
But recently, a number of innovations have been adopted that have strengthened the power of the last word of man. For example, video recording has been introduced when making wills. Accordingly, it is clearly seen that the person thought what he said. In addition, notarial acts have been given increased probative value. This means that you can’t just take and challenge a notarized fact.
Meanwhile, the desire to challenge the last will regularly arises among the relatives of the deceased immediately after the announcement of the will. During life, they may not remember a person. And after death they will feel resentment that they did not receive a penny.
For example, recently in Perm, a certain citizen left all his property by will to his niece, and not to his brother. The latter was offended and went to court to declare the document invalid. Did not work out.
According to experts, the plaintiff insisted that his brother promised him an apartment, but his niece brought confusion into their relationship and tricked her into the will. In court, it was proved that the deceased was clearly aware of what he was doing.
Lawyers emphasize that it is impossible to challenge a will just on the grounds that one of the relatives does not like it. There are several reasons why the courts can overrule a person’s last will. This can be done, for example, if a mandatory share in the inheritance has not been allocated. Incapacitated and minor heirs of the first stage have the right to it. That is, children. However, notaries are aware of these nuances, so such errors in wills are practically not allowed.
Perhaps most often, disgruntled heirs try to play the card of their relative’s madness. For example, recently in the capital, an elderly man left an apartment for his second wife. Children from the first marriage did not agree with this state of affairs and tried to prove that the paralyzed father could not be responsible for his actions. It didn’t work out. In another judicial history, the metropolitan real estate has also become a bone of contention. The adult son of the deceased was wounded, who bequeathed the property to her daughter, and not to him. The court considered that everything was in order with the will.
As they say in the notaries, it often happens that a relative does not remember the testator for many years, but appears first when the inheritance is divided. For example, a friend took care of a woman for 10 years, for whom she made a will. During all this time, the son never visited his mother, but after her death he tried to challenge her last will. Failed. There was also an artist who bequeathed paintings to the gallery, since the heiress-sister does not understand anything about this and she has nowhere to store them.
But in some situations, a person may be recognized as an unworthy heir and deprived of everything. For example, if he withdraws money from the accounts of the testator or makes a transfer in a mobile bank, the consequences can be very serious, up to declaring the heir unworthy by the court. You can withdraw from the account only to compensate for the costs of the funeral and not more than one hundred thousand rubles.
Also, for example, one cannot actually accept the testator’s car. From the date of his death, the car is deregistered and it is forbidden to drive it. If this rule is violated, the traffic police can take the car to the impound lot, and it will be possible to return it only after receiving a certificate of inheritance. Until the inheritance is distributed, nothing can be touched.
If there is no will, the inheritance is distributed according to the law. But making wills is already a tradition. According to the Federal Notarial Chamber, in 2022, notaries certified more than 582,000 wills. More than half a million of such documents were issued a year earlier. It is the will that helps to distribute property among future heirs as its owner sees fit, and does not dictate the general norms of the law.
Often, the notary actively asks the testator “for life”: where he lived before, where now, with whom, who cares, who else is from the relatives and what kind of relationship they have. He asks about the motives why “You leave this to Anya, and this to Vanya.” Such clarifications are especially important if a person disinherits close relatives in favor of applicants that are not obvious at first glance. Let’s say neighbors. Or your favorite barber. Recall that a will can be made in favor of almost any person or organization.
Sometimes explanations are indicated directly in the text of the will. For example — «I deprive my son of an inheritance, as he drinks and behaves badly.» In practice, there was a case: a woman made a will for one daughter, and deprived her second of her inheritance, as she beat her. At the same time, the testator brought the notary an extract from the hospital and a refusal from the police. Another case — the parents could not forgive their son for leaving to live abroad, and made a will in favor of the state.
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