Is helping a parent with a will undue influence?
Key takeaway
Helping a parent with a will does not by itself establish undue influence in the Florida decisions described here. The decisions involved sons helping their mother prepare and execute her will and attend to her affairs, and an adult child's assistance consistent with dutiful conduct toward an aging parent. For business, real estate, and investment owners and their families, the circumstances of the assistance and will preparation are central.
How Florida decisions describe a child's help
Florida decisions described in the articles found no undue influence in particular circumstances. Sons helped their mother prepare and execute her will and attend to her affairs. In another decision, an adult child's communications and assistance were consistent with a dutiful child's conduct toward an aging parent.
Florida practitioners describe an unresolved distinction. Dutiful-child conduct may prevent a presumption from arising, or it may rebut the presumption after it arises. Practitioners say the treatment turns on case-specific facts and notes that the issue had not been addressed beyond the quoted language in the decision discussed.
Active procurement is one part of the Florida analysis
Florida courts may assess active procurement of a will using nonexclusive indicators.
Other circumstances described in commentary
Florida practitioners describe a testator meeting alone with the drafting attorney, explaining decisions, understanding their effects, and leaving notes as circumstances that may support a response to an undue influence claim. The same practitioners describe independent living, or reliance on others in addition to or instead of the beneficiary, as evidence of the non-existence of undue influence.
New York practitioners say a close family relationship may not negate an inference of undue influence arising from a confidential relationship.