Don’t waste court’s time on inheritance disputes

SOME of my friends are currently involved in property disputes with their siblings. I find this sad because they were close when their parents were alive.

There’s nothing worse than inheritance disputes among siblings as it breaks up the whole family.

I went through one myself when some of my siblings tried to deny the others their portion of the inheritance despite the will stating that all the children were to have an equal share.

The case dragged on for a few years. Thankfully, the judge ruled in favour of all siblings sharing the inheritance equally. But it came at a cost as till today, we don’t speak to each other.

It is very sad to see siblings fighting among themselves for the property left by their parents. Even if the parents left a will, there will be instances when greedy siblings will try to deny other brothers or sisters their fair share.

I know of cases where one or two siblings would keep the surviving parent in their home and deny other siblings access. They would then use the other siblings’ absence as an excuse to coerce the parent to sign over the property to them, leaving out the others.

A lot of the court’s and judge’s time is wasted on such family disputes that should be thrown out at the very beginning or at least during case management.

If a final will exists, it would be good if judges use their discretion to throw out the cases, thereby saving family members thousands of ringgit in legal fees. This is because when such cases go to court, every member of the family is affected and some may not be able to afford the legal fees, and may land up in debt.

Unless the final will is lopsided, implying that the parent had written it under coercion to leave some siblings out, there is no reason to take such cases to court.

Perhaps the law should be amended to make parents who want to leave a child out of the will for whatever reasons, to officially disown them.

These parents should state the reasons for doing so in front of a judge before they write their will to ensure that they are not being coerced by another child.

Nothing could be fairer than a will that names all the children and gives each one of them an equal share of the inheritance, which is considered a birth right in many societies and not as payment for looking after one’s parents.

In fact, children should be happy to be given the opportunity of taking care of their parents and they should do so without expecting a bigger share of the inheritance.

Not every child may be financially able to able to look after their parents due to circumstances. They should not be denied their share of the inheritance.

Cases where children demand to be compensated for looking after their parent should not be entertained by the courts. What if the parent does not have any property or inheritance to pass down to the children? Would they end up being abandoned?

There are also cases of children who force their aged parents to sign over all their property to them and thereafter dump them in old folks’ homes.

Those who keep their parents in their home for the sole purpose of taking over their finances and controlling their money and getting compensation through the inheritance should be rejected by society.