It can be extremely difficult to witness a sibling (or other bad individual) negatively influencing an elderly parent and potentially interfering with your expected inheritance. Unfortunately, preventing another person from coercing an elderly parent be extremely difficult. The legal options available to intervene during the grantor’s lifetime are limited if the grantor is still cognizant of their own financial decisions because of the legal concepts of standing to sue and ripeness as explained below. The right to take legal action likely does not vest (or mature) until the death of one or both grantors.
Standing to Sue
Any party seeking a legal remedy must demonstrate to the court actual harm from the action they are challenging. You cannot sue someone over assets that do not (yet) belong to you because the outcome of the court’s ruling would not actually affect your current property rights. Assets you might inherit in the future do not legally belong to you. An inheritance grantor has the right to change, amend, restate, or even revoke their will or trust at any point until the estate plan becomes irrevocable on death. A person’s legal entitlement to an inheritance is not guaranteed until the will or trust becomes fully irrevocable upon death.
Ripeness
A legal claim is only “ripe” when the facts of the case have matured into an existing substantial controversy warranting court intervention. Courts must only make rulings for actual, present controversies. A claim is not ripe for a lawsuit if it rests upon possible future events that may or may not occur. Theft of a potential future inheritance is not ripe for judicial intervention before the inheritance grantor passes away because the future heirs and/or beneficiaries are not yet entitled to the estate’s assets, and because the grantor may change the terms of the estate plan at any point until death.
Conservatorship
While an inheritance grantor is alive, the assets in their estate still belong to them until death. The grantor has the right to make their own decisions about their finances and assets. Even if the grantor’s children may inherit the grantor’s assets after death, the children do not legally own the assets yet, and thus have no standing to sue on behalf of those assets.
So, what can an heir do if someone is negatively influencing an elderly parent, or has already convinced an elderly parent to disinherit them? Unfortunately, heirs have no automatic legal right to take control of the grantor’s assets without the grantor’s consent, unless the grantor suffers from a severe cognitive impairment (such as dementia, Alzheimer’s, a stroke, etc.) Even if the grantor becomes cognitively impaired, the heirs still do not have an automatic legal right to take control of the grantor’s finances. If the grantor does not consent, the person who wishes to gain control over the grantor’s finances must file a petition in court for a conservatorship over their parent’s assets. Conservatorships require proof of severe cognitive impairment be submitted to the court. The petitioner must prove the grantor can no longer handle their own finances due to cognitive impairment. The grantor or other heirs may object to the conservatorship which would essentially turn the dispute into a lawsuit.
Undue Influence (When the Time is Right)
An heir or inheritance beneficiary who becomes disinherited may have legal recourse if the disinheritance was a result of undue influence, lack of (mental) capacity or fraud. However, the disinherited party might need to wait until the grantor passes away. After the grantor passes away, the disinherited party should consult with an experienced trust and estate litigation attorney about filing a petition to overturn (“contest”) the grantor’s trust or will based on financial elder abuse.
