Although it is not common, the validity of a will can be challenged on numerous grounds. A successful challenge to a will can invalidate either a section of the will or the entire will itself. The most common grounds for contesting a will are:

Undue influence – the testator was improperly influenced by a close friend or caretaker to make unusually large distributions to that person
Lack of testamentary capacity – the testator did not have the required mental capacity to make a valid will
Insane delusion – the testator was suffering from a belief which he adhered to despite all evidence to the contrary and that belief materially affected a provision in the will
Fraud – the testator was intentionally misinformed about a matter relating to the distribution of his estate and this misinformation caused him to materially alter the way that he directed that distribution

In order to contest a will for any of these reasons a person must have standing. Essentially, standing is the right to take a legal action. In order to have standing to contest a will a person must either be named as a beneficiary in the will, or be eligible to inherit from the estate if the will or a provision of the will is deemed to not be valid. Contests and challenges require legal proceedings and can be long and costly.

There is no law in Massachusetts that prohibits a person from being both a personal representative and a beneficiary under a will. The personal representative is the person responsible for the administration of the will according to the wishes of the testator. A beneficiary is a person named in the will to receive a portion of the testator’s estate. There is no reason that a person cannot be named both the personal representative under a will and a beneficiary as well.

Not only is this allowed, it happens frequently. Married couples will often execute reciprocal wills naming each other the primary, if not only, beneficiary under the will as well as the primary personal representative of the estate.

There are no laws in Massachusetts that prohibit the naming of more than one primary personal representative. Typically, wills name one primary personal representative and then a successor personal representative if the primary is unable or unwilling to serve.

While it is not prohibited, it is not recommended to name more than one primary personal representative. The probating of a will requires some judgement calls to be made by the personal representative in order to ensure the equitable distribution of the estate according to the wishes of the testator. When there is more than one personal representative a majority of the representatives would have to agree before certain final decisions could be made.

Furthermore, should an even number of personal representatives be named, the chance for a stalemate between the personal representatives is possible. Such a stalemate would need to be resolved by court intervention, a potentially long and costly solution.

Both marriage and divorce can have major impacts on your life, but you may not realize that they can also affect the distribution of your assets after your death. A change in marital status can have an impact on the status of any will that was executed prior to that change. It is important to be aware of those effects in order to properly plan for them.

As stated in Part III of this series, generally marriage will completely revoke any will executed prior to that marriage. The reasoning is that once a person marries, it is assumed that he or she will want to execute a new will in order to include the spouse in the distribution of the estate. This automatic revocation can be avoided however, if the will is executed in anticipation of marriage and that anticipation is clearly stated in the will itself.

Unlike marriage, divorce does not completely revoke a will that was executed during the marriage. Instead, all mention of the former spouse is purged from the will and it is treated as if he or she predeceased the testator. Despite this automatic purging it is often suggested that the testator have a new will drafted at some point after the divorce in order to reflect changes in assets and intended beneficiaries.