Making a Will with Reduced Capacity

Reasons for judgement were released earlier this week in the case Moore v. Drummond. The Plaintiff, the surviving adult child of the deceased, was disinherited in a Will made by the deceased a year before her death.

Plaintiff claimed the deceased did not have testamentary capacity when she signed the Will.

Medical evidence and the evidence of the lawyer (who prepared the Will) proved otherwise. The Court held that the Will was valid. It now fell to the Plaintiff to proceed with his claim under the Wills Variation Act.

It is important to understand the notion of testamentary capacity and, more specifically, that a person may not be “fully capable” but still can “have enough in the tank” to make a Will.

This ad appeared in the Richmond News on November 23, 2012.