Contesting Wills and Trust Deeds

Get a good contentious probate lawyer. These type of lawyers are most familiar with laws of distribution. And they should especially be familiar with the wealth distribution laws in Malaysia and also inheritance laws in the UK, which the Malaysia laws are based on. For Muslims, its the Faraid Distribution as enforced in Malaysia for Muslims.

The common reason for contesting wills is of being left out of a Will or feeling of unfair treatment. There could be many grounds to present for contesting on this basis.

The Will could have been made under pressure, mentally unstable at that moment, emotionally influenced by other loved ones or could be a fraudulent Will or unprofessionally written without proper will writing advice.

Other reasons could be technical reasons. Such as forgetting to insert a clause, or a divorce just concluded without updating the Will. The deceased could have promised something, and it was not mentioned in the Will.

An experienced lawyer or estate planner may give real life examples of these disputes and how it was resolved.

A Trust Deed is a contract, and follows contract laws as well as the trust laws in Malaysia. You need to get a good Trust lawyer familiar with the various aspects of disputes on trust deeds, especially in Malaysia.

The most common dispute is unfair distribution, doesn’t like the trustees, want to know the actual distribution structure of the Trust.

The challenger may want to change the trustee, change the beneficiaries, get more distribution, see the details of the Trust Deed. The challenger can claim criminal breach of trust (CBT) of the trustee.

If the Settlor is alive and capable when these disputes arise, the Settlor can easily counter these disputes. As it is based on the wishes of the Settlor. Otherwise it will go to court and the legal processes in Malaysia.

• You need the help of a Professional Estate Planner who has a panel of lawyers to support and advise.
• The estate planner needs to have a team of people who can support the different types of Estate complexity.
• This estate support team should include specialist lawyers, accountants, tax and finance and company secretaries.
• Rockwills franchisees are professional estate planners, with in-depth training in estate planning, Rockwills estate planning processes and support services.