Family Provision Claims

Society and the law regard it as important that an individual take care and provide for those reliant on them, even when the individual has passed away. Therefore, if you choose to leave individuals out of your Will, you have to be extremely careful that the decision does not result in the ‘left out’ individual later being able to bring on a family provision claim.

In New South Wales, a family provision claim is an application to the Supreme Court under the Succession Act 2006 (NSW) for a share or a greater share of the deceased’s Estate. An individual may make the application to challenge the validity of the Will if they can prove that they are an ‘eligible person’ under section 57 of the Succession Act and have either been left out or not adequately provided for in the Will. 

The Supreme Court will consider the application, first determining the eligibility to contest the Will. If the Court finds that the individual is in fact an eligible individual, it will then evaluate whether the eligible person had in fact been deprived of ‘adequate provision for proper maintenance, education and maintenance in life’. If the Court finds in favour of the eligible person, it may make a Family Provision order based on what the Court deems to be adequate provision from the assets of the Estate. 

Here at Green & Associates Solicitors, our experienced lawyers will work with you to carefully draft the provisions of your Will to avoid your loved ones having to go through the unnecessary stresses of dealing with unexpected family provision claims, and ensuring that your assets are administered according to your wishes. You may contact us on (02) 8080 7585 for assistance.

Green & Associates Solicitors Experience and Success 

• We have acted for and against claimants in all types of circumstances;
• We were able to defeat a trustee in bankruptcy’s claim against an estate and turn a family provision claim into a proprietary estoppel claim, defeating other claimants and named beneficiaries in the process;
• We acted for a widowed wife where the appointed executor and trustee had delayed payments, discovering on further investigation their fraud for their own benefit extended to the purchase of aeroplanes and money laundering activities to increase the value of their own businesses (and got the money back and removed them);
• We have dealt with assets of all natures, from real and commercial properties through to opal mines and opals

We also provide in-house advice to companies on a range of matters, including:

• employment-law issues (i.e. enforcing or dispute a restraint of trade clause for previous or new employees);
• compliance and regulatory issues (i.e. licencing and underquoting breaches)
• criminal matters;
• property matters;
• defamation proceedings; and
• all types of commercial matters (i.e. drafting shareholder agreements).