People have relationships with their children that ebb and flow.  At some time they may have a very close relationship, at other times one where they go so far as to refuse to acknowledge that the other one even exists.  Depending on the nature of the relationship is usually the question of how much to leave ones children in a Will.  The question that arises is:

“Do you have an unfettered discretion as to how you leave your assets?”

Unfortunately the answer would have to be no.  Despite the fact that you lose control over what your children do upon their reaching the age of majority, sometimes even earlier, the law still provides for children to have access to the Courts if they believe they have not received a sufficient sum from you out of your estate.  Under the Succession Act there is what is known as testators family maintenance provisions.  In a nutshell these provisions require you to leave sufficient to your children so that they may support themselves.  The fact that you believe those children may fritter away any inheritance in a very short period of time does not matter in most cases particularly if the children do not own any assets.

Accordingly it is important that you obtain proper legal advice how to structure your Will if you have children that have either disappointed you or at not even on speaking terms.  There are certain ways to limit the effect of the TFM provision and we would suggest that you speak with us concerning those.

Even the more importance for getting this legal advice is the fact that if the Will is challenged and testators family maintenance provisions apply and the Court orders provision for a child left out of the Will the legal costs of taking action and defending the action would usually come out of the assets of the estate thus leaving even less for all parties concerned.