2023-10-01 04:00:00
Until the death of his father from Covid-19 in the spring of 2020, François Martel would have sworn that, when the day came, everything would go as planned.
He had been named executor several years earlier and, following his parents’ wishes, the property would be divided equally among the five siblings.
Unfortunately, the reality was quite different. And rather than beginning his mourning as it should, the sudden departure of his father was for him and his sisters the beginning of three years of long legal battles once morest half of the siblings. Something he never thought possible.
Yet this is what happened. “Those who imagine that their parents’ inheritance will automatically come to them, that it is in some way part of their heritage, may be in for big surprises,” he warns. This experience showed me that you can’t take anything for granted. Even with family. »
Mr. Martel began to suspect that something abnormal was going on from the first moments of reading the will. Not only was the latter no longer the designated executor, but he also learned that he and his two sisters had been completely disinherited by their father.
For everyone, with the exception of the two recognized younger brothers, the surprise was total. “Until the health measures linked to Covid prevented us from visiting him, we all had good relations with him,” explains Mr. Martel. And never, ever, did he inform us of any changes to his final wishes. Why would he have come to make such a decision? »
His two younger brothers, who became the only heirs of the siblings (of five), repeated in vain that their father had asked them, and without the knowledge of the rest of the family, to exclude the three other brothers and sisters from the inheritance. , a doubt remained… So much so that Mr. Martel decided to make some usual checks to be sure.
Then begins the search for a series of clues to prove that their father, diminished, suffering from the beginnings of dementia and made vulnerable, was encouraged by those around him, and once morest his will, to sign a will disinheriting the half of his children.
With his sisters, they decide to get help. Followed by the hiring of a private detective, a specialized lawyer, an expert in ophthalmology, and not one, but two graphologists to demonstrate, among other things, that passages in the documents had in fact never been written by their father.
“It’s not an easy part,” explains François Martel, who has always been fascinated by law, without choosing to make it a career. It takes time and money to assert the truth. And knowing that in the meantime, he warns, the outcome of this fight is never certain… You think regarding that all the time. These are years of doubts, questioning and shortened nights. »
In the end, it will have been worth it. Last May, three years following the death of their father, all five brothers and sisters agreed to an amicable settlement and were given their share of the inheritance. The succession is settled. The family spirit remains to be rebuilt.
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