Father dies 3 months after getting remarried- Will Questions

[Newberry]

What is the name of your state? Virginia

My parents divorced 2 years ago after 32 years of marriage. My father, in bad health and mental condition, re-married 3 months ago to a woman 26 years younger than him (he was 56). He has passed after 3 months of marriage to his young bride. She has 2 children from a previous marriage (she was living with him before her divorce was final).
My fathers will (written after his marriage) leaves everything to his new wife and nothing to myself, my 2 kids or my younger brother.

My father was also on anti-depressant medicine and had a long history of mental illness.
I hate to see his kids and grandkids get nothing because of this "convenient" 3 month marriage.

His new bride asked the doctors at his hopital to not put him on any type of life support, or try to revive him after he went into arrest because he "did not have a living will".

Do we have grounds to contest this will? Is there any hope of fairness?

I appreciate any information!
Best wishes to all for a Happy New Year.
Newberry

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

What is the name of your state? Virginia

My parents divorced 2 years ago after 32 years of marriage. My father, in bad health and mental condition, re-married 3 months ago to a woman 26 years younger than him (he was 56). He has passed after 3 months of marriage to his young bride. She has 2 children from a previous marriage (she was living with him before her divorce was final).
My fathers will (written after his marriage) leaves everything to his new wife and nothing to myself, my 2 kids or my younger brother.

My father was also on anti-depressant medicine and had a long history of mental illness.
I hate to see his kids and grandkids get nothing because of this "convenient" 3 month marriage.

His new bride asked the doctors at his hopital to not put him on any type of life support, or try to revive him after he went into arrest because he "did not have a living will".

Do we have grounds to contest this will? Is there any hope of fairness?

I appreciate any information!
Best wishes to all for a Happy New Year.
Newberry

My response:

I rather doubt it, at least from the information that you've given. You say he was on "anti-depressant" medication. Well, if the medicine was working, then that would have made him of "sound mind" - - thus, making any claims you might have even harder to prove.

IAAL

 

[Newberry]

Thanks for your response.
I understood the doctors to say that one of the reasons he died is that he had not been taking his lithium correctly, and it had reached toxic levels. An autopsy was performed but we were told it may take 2 years to get the results back.
His first wife took good care of him. He was a diabetic and needed quite a bit of care. After his second marriage he went downhill very quickly. We've lost our father and our birthright.
It really is a mess.
Thanks again IAAL.

 

[lwpat]

Have you talked to the police?

 

[Dandy Don]

If you can substantiate the "long history of mental illness", that would be a factor in your favor, as well as finding out whether the incorrect application of the lithium would be a factor. A physician can tell you how to get that information.

At least show the will to a probate attorney to have him/her review it to see how strong your grounds would be.

 

[Newberry]

Thank you all for the replies.
We haven't talked to anyone except family at this point. We are still trying to deal with our loss.
There have been more than a few friends and family members who have urged us to take some sort of action. They all seem to tell the same story about our father. How he changed about 14 years ago, and was told he had a chemical imbalance. He had been seeing a psychiatrist for several years. He had problems with reality, in that he would dream up things that family and friends had done to him, which hadn’t really happened. He did really believe these “bad” things though. He would not allow any of the family to speak with his psychiatrist and became very paranoid. He had delusions about myself, and my brother, believing that we had done terrible things to him. We think these beliefs were the reason his new bride was able to convince him to leave everything to her. He pushed us all away due to these delusions, and there was no convincing him otherwise.

We do know that his lithium level was extremely high when the doctors talked with us. They attempted to flush the excess out of his system. The day he died, his level was actually back to normal.
.
We wondered if the doctors suspected anything because none of them could tell us the reason he died. They came to us and suggested the autopsy and I’m not sure if that is standard procedure.

I don’t know if makes any difference in the contesting of the will, but his total estate is somewhere around two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Our father had just gotten out of the hospital after a stroke, when he married this young girl and had his will made out. Again, he died 3 months later.

I’m sorry for the long post, but it helps to know there are people out there willing to offer advice to us.

Thank you all again.

 

[Dandy Don]

At least take the will to a probate attorney--it won't cost you very much to find out what your options are. The only downside is that if you do decide to contest, you will have to pay a few thousand dollars upfront to get a probate attorney to contest unless the attorney makes some other type of payment arrangement with you.