Posted: Friday, 5 September 2025 @ 15:15
There are ways to win an inheritance dispute case.
And there are ways to lose.
And it is also much easier to lose a Court case than to win it.
From my experience the most common errors and faux pas include:
1 Making the wrong legal steps. Within the inheritance arena there always multiple ways to progress your claim/your position and a key way to waste time, legal cost and reduce credibility is to either make the wrong legal application or to make the right court application but use the wrong content.
2 Trashing the other side directly and/or their lawyers. Litigation is fundamentally unpleasant at times and there is a time to confront the other side be it their lawyers or the opponents directly. But being aggressive against the other side is not generally a good look. I have seen cases wrecked on the basis of one poor, aggressive and emotional letter. Please do not fall into this trap. Tone is so important.
3 Failing to work out when to agree issues and when to dispute issues with the other side. Some litigants can take the approach of robustly defending their client and wanting to dispute every issue and point raised. The downside is this can undermine client credibility, increase costs and take your dispute away from issues which work in your favour. Fundamentally I am trying to take the case to a narrow set of issues which works in my client's favour. A carte blanche approach of disputing every point is likely to have poor long term outcomes.
4 Getting over-zealous on legal costs/damages claimed. Being restrained on the legal and other costs you are seeking will serve you well in a court situation. When I am in Court I am very thoughtful with costs claimed as I want to retain the sympathy of the judge.
5 Ignoring dispute resolution techniques. There are a number of ways of trying to settle a case and these can not only bring your matter to a resolution, can impress a judge and also put the other side under pressure. This can be a formal offer of mediation, an offer to do early neutral evaluation or just seeking each party pay their own costs. A strong open offer can pay dividends especially if it is rejected. I rate open offers highly compared to without prejudice ones.