okay in today's video I want to take a look at wills in special cases what are
special cases I hear you ask special cases are essentially where the person
making the will the testator is in danger of imminent death or is an
elderly testator even a death may cover somebody for example who has a terminal
illness may be in a nursing home elderly testator's obviously that speaks
for itself the potential issues that will arise in these categories will be
to do with undue influence and testamentary capacity undue influence
obviously is where somebody is vulnerable and dependent upon somebody
else and may be susceptible to being influenced as to the will and as to what
a pudding in the world testamentary capacity rises obviously in relation to
an elderly person or indeed somebody who may have a terminal illness I may be
taking a lot of drugs taking a lot of medication and may not just quite
understand what's going on so testamentary capacity goes to whether
the person knows what they're doing and what's involved in making it with water
what is the impact and the effect essentially of what they're doing
imminent death is a testator in hospital or nursing home the testator must be
capable of making a will that is they must understand what's happening
the medical report on the testator may need to be obtained to verify that he or
she was capable of making a will and knew what was going on you will need two
independent witnesses as usual this can sometimes cause a problem in a nursing
home or a hospital because sometimes medical personnel care staff don't
necessarily want to get involved with a will just in case there's a dispute
afterwards and they don't want to be involved
I've just had that experience unfortunately so you do need to be
careful that you have two independent witnesses if you're making a will with
somebody in a nursing home or Hospital elderly case terrors then can be
vulnerable due to advanced age lack of education mental incapacity or ill
health nevertheless in Irish law there is a presumption of in testamentary
capacity soundness of mind and jus execution of the will testamentary
capacity then looks at a number of issues and it goes back to a case from
1870 involving banks be good fellow one the testator must understand he's making
a will which will dispose of his assets when he dies when he passes away to the
test error must be capable of knowing the extent of his estate in other words
he must know what his assets and liabilities are and number three the
testator must be able to give consideration to those people who might
expect to benefit and decide whether or not to benefit him ultimately it's his
decision but he must be able to give consideration to those people all you
influence then is something that can arise in relation to elderly people
there is a situation of presumed on you influence in certain relationships for
example solicitor client doctor-patient it is presumed that a solicitor or a
doctor will have a fair degree of influence over a patient or client other
relationships can arise where the testator places trust and confidence in
your party independent legal advice for the testator is the recognised way of
reporting any presumption of undue influence in other words if there's
going to be a dispute later on saying that such and such a person was making
that will under india own jew influence rather than independent legal advice
having been obtained and a solicitor saying that swearing that they were
happy and satisfied that the person knew what were doing and they weren't under
any undue influence that's the best way of reporting and a presumption of undue
influence my name is Terry Gauri my contact details are on the screen I hope
you find this video useful if you do you might give us a thumbs up down below and
you may be interested in subscribing to my youtube channel my youtube channel
deals with all aspects of Eric's law and Irish business and I try to explain
Irish aspects of us in plain English plain
language thanks for watching