How long until I receive my entitlement from contesting or challenging a will?
The simplest way to shorten the time until you receive any entitlement is for you to get the ball rolling. We cannot present your claim until you reach out and make contact with us (Step 1 of our 6-step process).
Contact us now or complete our online questionnaire to get started.
See Also: What is the free assessment?
After your free assessment (Step 2 of our 6-step process), if we believe you have a good claim and you wish to proceed, we will need to contact the executor/s (Step 3 of our 6-step process). Some types of family provision claims have been known to settle at this early stage.
Sometimes it is simply a single, well-written, letter from a legal professional that convinces the executor to behave appropriately (Step 4 of our 6-step process). If this occurs all of your issues might be resolved in a matter of weeks. This does occur in a high number of contested will matters.
If the letter doesn’t motivate the executor to take the right course of action, the next step we take is to begin negotiations with the executor. If negotiations are successful then the resolution of your contested will matter will be swift (usually occurring in a matter of weeks or months) and you can avoid going to court.
See Also: Executor’s duties
If negotiations are unsuccessful then, as your legal professionals, we will need to lodge documents with the court to initiate proceedings (Step 5 of our 6-step process). Within approximately 6 months of lodging these documents your claim will be referred to mediation. In our experience approximately 98% of all our cases settle either at or before mediation.
If a result is not reached at mediation, then as your legal professionals, it is our role to represent you at a hearing (Step 6 of our 6-step process). It usually takes between 12 and 24 months for a case to be heard. To date we have remarkable success at hearings. Also, to date we have not had any loss in court that was not overturned on appeal. This means that our clients all walked away with their just entitlements.
See Also: Mediation
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