Poorly Written Wills Can Risk Entire Inheritances
Anybody can write a will. With today’s technology, hundreds of websites offer state-specific templates to create wills, establish trusts, and make the sort of critical estate planning decisions once overseen by experienced attorneys.
While a simple, short will could help Bayou State residents save money, an estate plan could be thrust into unexpected jeopardy if it contains content errors.
Types of Content Errors in a Louisiana Will
- Typos
- Inaccuracies
- Ambiguous language
Often, a Louisiana succession court can easily ascertain the decedent’s intent. However, when inaccuracies and ambiguous language make it difficult to determine how the deceased person wished to distribute their assets, heirs may disagree on how inheritances should be disbursed.
Will Ambiguities That Could Compromise an Estate Plan
Ambiguous language of any form could bring the decedent’s intent into question. Common testamentary ambiguities can, for example, include a bequest that does not clearly specify who should receive a particular asset.
Other Will Ambiguities
- Gifts of real property or other assets to a person who is not of legal age to acquire the assets
- Gifts of assets that no longer exist, or have been retitled, since the decedent’s death
- A bequest that omits a recipient’s full legal name or mischaracterizes the relationship between the deceased person and the heir
- Estate plans that do not include certain forced heirs such as biological children who were born after the will was written
When a testamentary ambiguity cannot be resolved by the heirs and their legal counsel, a Louisiana probate court may adjudicate any resulting disputes.
How Courts Assess Ambiguous Testamentary Language
A last will and testament is supposed to be representative of a deceased person’s wishes. Since the Bayou State presumes that most adults have the legal capacity to make their own estate planning decisions, the courts typically seek to recognize and uphold the decedent’s intent.
According to the Louisiana Civil Code, the intent of the testator—the person who created the will—is paramount in adjudicating its interpretation.
What a Court May Consider When There’s a Will Contest
- The language of the will in its entirety
- Whether the will was drafted by a layperson or an attorney
- Evidence suggestive of the testator’s intent
If the language of the will is unambiguous and easily understood, the court may refuse to consider any additional evidence. However, if the will is opaque, the contesting heir has the opportunity to locate and present evidence indicating the decedent’s likely intent.
Protecting Your Rights During a Will Contest
Even with the right evidence, persuading a Louisiana succession court to reinterpret an ambiguous will could prove a monumental task. You could protect your right to an inheritance by:
- Collecting evidence demonstrative of the testator’s intent, including original copies of the last will and testament, codicils, and trust documents
- Preserving evidence, such as written correspondences and handwriting samples, that could be used to support or buffer your argument
- Refraining from discussing the estate and your lawsuit with any other parties who stand to inherit or otherwise benefit from the dissolution of the estate
Since will contests are a form of probate-related litigation, you should seriously consider contacting an experienced Louisiana succession attorney. A lawyer could help you gather and analyze the evidence needed to overcome the court’s high threshold for an estate challenge, constructing a compelling, evidence-based case for your right to inherit.
Contact a Louisiana Estate Litigation Attorney
Scott Law Group – Estate Counsel has years of experience helping Louisianans advocate for their rights. Please call us at 504-264-1057 to speak to a legal professional and explore your legal options.
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The Difference Between Errors, Typos, and Ambiguity in Wills
Not every problem in a will’s text requires litigation to resolve. Courts and attorneys distinguish among three categories of textual problems: clerical errors, patent ambiguity, and latent ambiguity — and the legal approach to each is different. A clerical error is an obvious mistake in the transcription of the testator’s intent — a wrong name spelled consistently with the intended person, a dollar amount that is clearly a typographical error (leaving “$10,000” when the will elsewhere refers to leaving “one hundred thousand dollars”), or the omission of a word that the surrounding text makes clear was intended. Courts can sometimes correct obvious clerical errors without treating the problem as an ambiguity at all, reading the will as it was clearly meant rather than as it was literally written.
Patent ambiguity exists on the face of the document — the text itself is unclear without any reference to external facts. A will that says “I leave my property to my children” may be patently ambiguous if the will also defines “children” in a way that conflicts with the general meaning. A will that provides “I leave one-third of my estate to each of my three children” is patently ambiguous if the testator actually has four children. In these cases, the ambiguity is apparent from reading the document itself, and courts turn to the document’s other provisions, its structure, and sometimes the circumstances of the will’s creation to determine what the testator intended. The goal is to give effect to the testator’s actual intent, not to void the provision simply because it is imprecisely worded.
Latent ambiguity arises when the will’s text appears clear on its face but becomes ambiguous when applied to external facts. A bequest to “my nephew James” becomes latently ambiguous when the testator has two nephews named James. A bequest of “my house on Oak Street” becomes ambiguous when the testator owned two houses on streets with Oak in their name. In latent ambiguity cases, Louisiana courts consider extrinsic evidence — statements the testator made about their intentions, correspondence, prior drafts of the will, and the circumstances surrounding the execution — to resolve which of the possible interpretations was actually intended. The admission of this extrinsic evidence is an exception to the general rule that wills are interpreted from their text alone, and the exception exists because applying the literal text would produce a result that clearly does not reflect what the testator meant.
How Louisiana Courts Interpret Ambiguous Will Provisions
Louisiana’s approach to will interpretation is anchored in Civil Code article 1611, which directs courts to ascertain the testator’s intent from the text of the testament itself. The testator’s subjective intent controls over the literal meaning of the words used when the two diverge — Louisiana law favors giving effect to what the testator actually meant rather than enforcing an unintended result just because the words literally support it. When the text of the will is ambiguous, courts look first to the will’s other provisions for context and coherence, then to the circumstances surrounding the will’s execution, and finally to extrinsic evidence of the testator’s stated intentions if necessary to resolve the ambiguity. This interpretive hierarchy ensures that the court makes every reasonable effort to find and give effect to the testator’s actual wishes.
Louisiana courts apply several interpretive canons when construing ambiguous wills. When two provisions conflict, the more specific provision controls over the general one — a specific bequest of a named asset takes precedence over a general residuary provision. When a provision is susceptible of two interpretations, the one that gives effect to the provision is preferred over the one that would render it void. When the testator’s intent cannot be determined from the will itself and extrinsic evidence, Louisiana’s intestate succession rules serve as a default — the ambiguous portion of the estate passes as if no will existed, restoring the heirs’ statutory shares for that portion. This default to intestate succession operates as a background rule when interpretation fails, ensuring that the estate is distributed by some coherent legal principle even when the will’s own instructions are too unclear to follow.
Expert testimony about will drafting practice and legal terminology is sometimes relevant in will interpretation proceedings. An attorney who can testify about what specific legal terms mean in standard estate planning practice — what “residuary estate” conventionally includes, what “personal property” means in the context of estate planning versus everyday usage, what the standard form of certain testamentary provisions looks like — can help a court understand whether the testator’s words were used in their conventional legal sense or in a personal sense that departs from common professional usage. This expert testimony is particularly useful when the will was drafted without attorney assistance and when the testator may have used legal-sounding terms without fully understanding their legal significance.
When Will Errors and Ambiguity Lead to Litigation
Will ambiguity leads to litigation when the parties who would benefit from different interpretations cannot agree on which interpretation is correct and when the stakes are high enough to justify the cost of a court proceeding. A dispute over the interpretation of a provision that controls the distribution of a family home, a business interest, or a significant sum of money is likely to result in litigation if the interested parties are not willing to compromise. The court proceeding to resolve the ambiguity is called a petition for declaratory judgment or a suit for construction of the will — the court’s role is to declare what the disputed provision means and to direct the succession representative to distribute accordingly.
The litigation risk of ambiguous wills is why estate planning attorneys invest significant effort in ensuring that the language of a will is precise, internally consistent, and unambiguous. A well-drafted will defines key terms, addresses contingencies (what happens if a beneficiary dies before the testator), specifies the relationship of different bequests to each other, and uses standard legal terms in their standard legal sense. These drafting choices eliminate most of the textual problems that generate will interpretation disputes. A will that requires litigation to interpret has already failed at its most basic function: providing a clear, legally binding expression of the testator’s intentions that the succession representative and the court can follow without controversy.
When you are a party to a succession dispute involving an ambiguous or erroneous will, the first step is retaining a succession attorney who can analyze the will’s text, identify the applicable interpretive principles, assess the strength of each party’s interpretation, and evaluate the cost-benefit calculation of proceeding to litigation versus reaching a negotiated resolution. Many will interpretation disputes settle before trial because the parties realize that the court’s interpretation cannot be predicted with certainty and that the costs of litigation will reduce the estate available to everyone. A negotiated agreement that all parties can accept — even if no one is fully satisfied — is often the most efficient resolution of a will dispute that hinges on textual ambiguity rather than bad faith conduct.