Contesting a Will in Scotland is possible, but it is rarely straightforward. Three recent decisions of the Scottish courts show exactly where the line falls. A homemade Will, filled in by the daughter who stood to gain from it, was set aside after more than three years of litigation. A solicitor-drafted Will survived a full proof in the Court of Session. And a letter found among a woman’s papers after her death was held to change nothing at all. If you are thinking about making or updating a Will, the message from all three is the same. How you do it matters just as much as what it says.
Most families never end up in court arguing about a Will. When they do, though, the dispute is slow, painful and expensive — and the legal costs come out of the very estate everyone is fighting over. Relationships rarely recover.
Scots law has allowed Wills to be set aside for centuries. The courts will intervene where someone was vulnerable and another person took advantage. What has changed recently is how clearly the judgments spell out the reasoning. Three cases in particular are worth understanding, because between them they cover almost every way a Will can come unstuck.
The DIY Will that did not survive
The first is Scott v Reeves [2026] SC GLA 57, decided at Glasgow Sheriff Court by Sheriff A F Deutsch and handed down in December 2025. The full judgment is published by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and the case was also reported by Scottish Legal News.
Mrs Ruby Scott died on 14 March 2021, aged 77. She had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in September 2018, and by the relevant period she was very physically frail, suffering intermittent episodes of delirium and experiencing significant anxiety. In October 2011 she and her husband had instructed solicitors, and her Will left her Glasgow home equally to three of her five children.
After her death a second document appeared. It was a two-page printed DIY Will form, completed by hand — but not in her handwriting. It had been filled in by the daughter who was by then her principal carer and was managing her finances, and who was also the person it most benefited. She received no legal advice at any stage.
Then came the detail that unravelled it. The document bore the date 25 April 2019. But the blank form used was not first published until November 2019, so it could not possibly have been signed when it said it was. The daughter’s solicitors later stated the date had in fact been 25 April 2020.
Why would the year matter so much? Because in December 2018 the deceased’s GP had told that same daughter she would need a formal capacity assessment from a psychiatrist before her mother granted a Power of Attorney — and warned her, in terms, that other family members might question a GP’s view in any future dispute over the estate. The Power of Attorney was duly signed in February 2019 with a consultant psychiatrist’s certificate attached. A Will dated April 2019 would appear to sit comfortably under that certificate. A Will dated April 2020 would not.
The sheriff found the choice of date was deliberate, and that it pointed to an understanding on the daughter’s part that something irregular had happened.
Two other findings stand out. First, the most persuasive evidence about the deceased’s state of mind came from a third sister who stood to gain nothing under either Will — the sheriff noted she had no stake in the outcome, which is precisely why her account carried weight. Second, on undue influence, three matters were decisive: the daughter’s position of dominance over her mother’s finances and care, the benefit she received under the new Will, and the absence of any independent legal advice. Together, the sheriff held, they raised an inescapable inference.
The second Will was reduced. The 2011 Will stood.
What that DIY form actually cost the family
This is the part of Scott v Reeves that rarely gets reported, and it is the part most worth reading twice.
The action was raised in September 2022. Judgment came in December 2025. In between, the case was paused for eighteen months while investigations were made, apparently including a handwriting expert. Two separate proof diets were fixed and discharged before any evidence was heard. An amendment brought six further defenders into the action, including the daughter’s own children. Counsel were instructed on both sides. Expert evidence came from a consultant in old age psychiatry, the deceased’s GP gave evidence, and the medical records alone ran to 474 pages. Evidence was finally heard over three days spread across September and November 2025, with expenses left to a further hearing.
Three years and three months. All of it flowing from a printed form that cost a few pounds.
The judgment does not record the bill, and it does not need to. Whatever it came to, it was met out of a modest estate consisting largely of one Glasgow house — the same house the family had been arguing about.
The solicitor’s Will that held firm
The second case reached the Court of Session and produced the opposite result. Haq v Irvine [2026] CSOH 45 is an opinion of Lord Harrower in the Outer House, issued on 8 May 2026 after a full proof.
Abdul Haq was diagnosed with metastatic cancer on 3 November 2021 and told he might have only months to live. He died on 31 March 2022. Shortly after the diagnosis he had conversations with three of his adult sons that led them to expect they would benefit under a new Will. On 11 February 2022 he did make one — and it left the entire residue of his estate to Samina, his second wife.
There was an earlier Will too, made in 2004, which the older children knew nothing about until after his death. It provided for his estate to be divided according to the principles of Islamic law, under which all of his children would have benefited. Had the challenge succeeded, that Will would have revived.
His four adult children sought production and reduction on the grounds of facility and circumvention and undue influence. Everyone accepted he had testamentary capacity. Their case was that illness had worn him down and left him unable to resist his wife’s influence.
The action failed, and the reasons are instructive.
The Will had been prepared by Martin Monaghan, a very experienced solicitor who had acted for Mr Haq through a bitter five-year divorce settlement and in numerous transactions since. He attended at the house, found his client physically frail but mentally alert, coherent and capable of giving clear instructions, and recorded the reasons given. There were three meetings in all — more, the solicitor said, than would normally take place. The instructions were consistent every time.
Two further precautions mattered enormously. Mr Haq had no difficulty in English, but his first language was Urdu, so an Urdu-speaking colleague attended and interpreted the terms of the Will before he signed — expressly to eliminate any language-based challenge later. And immediately after signing, the solicitor completed a written capacity and undue influence checklist confirming he had no concerns on either count.
The independent evidence pointed the same way. The palliative care nurse recorded no cognitive impairment and no capacity issues. Asked whether Mr Haq was someone who would be vulnerable to influence, the social worker overseeing his care answered, firmly, that he was not.
Lord Harrower found the deceased to have been <q>resolute, independent, and resistant to control by others</q>. He had been astute enough to instruct his own solicitor rather than the firm one of his sons preferred. He asked for the Will to be emailed rather than left in the house, so that his older children would not find it — which the judge treated as showing real mental acuity. And he spent his final weeks living in the care of the very children who later challenged the Will, without ever revoking it. The pursuers could not explain that.
Scots law gave him the freedom to dispose of his estate as he saw fit, whatever his children expected. The Will reflected his genuine intentions, and it stood.
It is worth adding what that defence involved. The executors who defended the action had no personal stake in the estate whatsoever. They did it because they believed the Will was what their client had instructed. A full proof followed, with ten witnesses, senior solicitors’ firms and counsel on both sides, and expenses still to be determined. A Will made properly is far more likely to survive a challenge — but it does not stop one being brought.
The letter that changed nothing
The third case is Boyd v Boyd [2025] SC FAL 102, decided at Falkirk Sheriff Court by Sheriff Christopher Shead in August 2025 — in the same sheriffdom that covers Dunfermline and Kinross. The judgment is available here.
Isabel Boyd made her Will in September 2002 and died in January 2023. Her two daughters had been estranged from each other, and one of them from their mother, since 2006.
After the death, one daughter found a single-page copy of a handwritten letter dated January 2009 among her mother’s papers. It set out instructions to change the Will so that her sister would receive nothing. She asked the court to treat it as an informal codicil.
The court refused, and the reasoning repays attention.
The daughter’s case was that the letter had been sent to the solicitors who held the Will and lost in the post. The sheriff rejected that on the letter’s own terms: it named that firm in a way that would have made no sense had the firm been the addressee. His conclusion was that it had been drafted as instructions to a different firm of solicitors altogether — and that it was never sent at all.
Both sisters agreed their mother had been a meticulous woman in matters of business. That agreement proved fatal. If she had genuinely intended to change her Will, the sheriff reasoned, it was inconceivable that she would have let the matter lie for fourteen years without following it up. The more compelling inference was that she had changed her mind.
There were technical problems too. The original letter had more than one page and only one survived, so the court could not know what the missing page said. A postscript sat below the signature, which raised its own difficulty under the rules on where a document must be signed. But the central point was simpler: a letter of instruction to a solicitor is not a Will. The question in these cases is whether a document was meant as a concluded expression of the maker’s wishes, or only as a paper of instructions. This was the latter.
The 2002 Will took effect, and the sheriff indicated that expenses would go against the daughter who had raised the action.
What are the grounds for contesting a Will in Scotland?
Scots law lets you leave your estate broadly as you wish, subject to the Legal Rights that a surviving spouse or civil partner and children have in the net moveable estate. The Scottish Parliament’s research briefing on inheritance law in Scotland sets out the framework clearly. A challenge to a Will’s validity is raised by way of an action of production and reduction, in either the Sheriff Court or the Court of Session.
Four grounds do most of the work.
Facility and circumvention
Three things must be established. Facility is a weakness of mind that leaves someone unusually open to pressure, brought on by age, infirmity, pain, grief or a condition such as dementia. Circumvention is the improper pressure applied to exploit it. Lesion means harm — though where the first two are established, the very fact that the Will was made in those circumstances is treated as harm enough.
The three are assessed together rather than in isolation. Facility is a spectrum rather than a switch. A robust person can usually resist pressure, or at least choose whether to give in. A facile person may not. The pressure itself need not be dramatic either: it can be direct and overpowering at one extreme, or subtle and insidious at the other.
Undue influence
This concerns the abuse of trust, and it has four elements: a relationship creating dominance or ascendancy, trust arising from that relationship, a material and gratuitous benefit to the prejudice of the person making the Will, and the absence of independent advice. That last element is the one that decides most cases. Independent advice, given before the deed is signed, is how a challenge on this ground is most reliably headed off.
Lack of capacity
The person making the Will must understand what they are doing, what they own and who might reasonably expect to benefit. Capacity is judged at the moment of signing, not in general terms. Notably, capacity was not in dispute in either Scott or Haq.
Improper execution
A Will must satisfy the formalities of the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995, including subscription at the end of the last page. Get the signing or witnessing wrong and the document can fail whatever it says.
Boyd raises a fifth question that sits slightly apart from these: whether a document is testamentary at all. A note or letter can be perfectly genuine and still change nothing, because it was never intended to be the final word.
Led, but not driven
There is a formulation that captures the test neatly. A testator may be led but not driven. The Will must be the offspring of the testator’s own volition.
The courts also recognise something important: undue influence is inherently improbable in the case of Wills. Someone hoping to benefit is far more likely to rely on affection, gratitude or ordinary persuasion than on coercion. So the circumstances have to make undue influence more probable than any other explanation. If another possibility is just as likely, the challenge fails.
That is a high bar. It also explains why so much turns on the evidence that existed when the Will was made, rather than on how the family feels about the outcome afterwards.
Does the person who benefits have to leave the room?
This question comes up constantly, and Haq answers it more clearly than most.
Mr Haq’s wife was present at the meetings, though she sat away from the discussion and did not intervene. The court held there is no rule of law or practice requiring a testator to be seen alone. The situations where separate advice is essential — a spouse granting a standard security over the family home for the other’s borrowing, for example — arise from an obvious conflict of interest. There is no equivalent conflict where one spouse simply makes a Will in favour of the other.
That said, the mere presence of a solicitor is not a magic shield. The nature and quality of the advice matters. In an earlier Scottish case the court criticised a solicitor for failing to advise the testator away from the beneficiary — but there the file already recorded concerns about the testator’s health and his dependence on that beneficiary, and the beneficiary had taken part in the call when instructions were given.
The honest answer is that it depends. What matters is that whoever takes the instructions is alive to the question, exercises judgment on it, and records that judgment. None of which can happen when a form is filled in at the kitchen table.
When is a Will most likely to be contested?
Certain circumstances attract challenges far more than others. They are worth recognising, because they are also the circumstances in which careful process matters most:
- Second marriages and blended families, especially where children from a first marriage receive less than they expect
- Leaving more to the person who provides your care than to your other children
- Making changes at a point when your health is failing
- Falling out with one child and reducing or removing their share
- Any Will made without advice where the main beneficiary helped arrange it
None of these is a reason to avoid doing what you want with your own estate. Haq makes that explicit: your freedom to dispose of your estate does not bend to what your family expects. They are reasons to do it properly, so that your wishes actually hold.
How to make your own Will hard to challenge
The practical steps are not complicated.
- Use a Scottish solicitor. An online template saves money today and offers nothing at all tomorrow, as Scott demonstrates at length.
- Get medical evidence where it matters. If you are elderly or unwell, a contemporaneous opinion from your GP or consultant puts capacity beyond argument. Around 90,000 people in Scotland live with dementia, so this is far from unusual.
- Explain unusual decisions. If you are leaving someone out, say why, so the reasoning goes on file at the time. It was Mr Haq’s recorded reasons, more than anything else, that carried the day.
- Do it formally. Boyd is the warning here. Notes, letters and back-of-an-envelope changes do not alter a Will. Only a properly executed Will or codicil does.
- Review it regularly. Marriage, divorce, a new grandchild, a house move or a bereavement can all leave a Will saying something you no longer mean. Our article on the importance of estate planning goes into this further.
- Plan for incapacity too. A Power of Attorney covers decisions during your lifetime. It is a separate document, and it gives your attorney no power whatsoever to write or alter your Will.
Plenty of people do none of this. Research by the Money and Pensions Service found that 56% of UK adults have no Will at all, and Will Aid puts the figure at 67% once out-of-date Wills are counted.
Worried about a Will that has already been signed?
If you believe a relative was pressured into changing their Will, act quickly. Evidence disappears, memories fade and estates get distributed. Delay defeats more challenges than any legal argument does.
The material that mattered in these cases included GP and medical records, expert psychiatric opinion, the evidence of nurses, social workers, carers and family friends, the circumstances of the signing, and the solicitor’s file. Assembling that is not a DIY job either, so take advice early — and go in with realistic expectations about how long it can take and what it can cost.
It is worth saying something else plainly. In Haq, two sons recorded video and audio of their dying father in an attempt to establish that he had been pressured. The judge found the recordings painful to watch, and in the end counsel made almost nothing of them. Challenges like these take a toll on families long before any judgment is issued. That is one more reason to get the Will right at the outset.
Why choose Morgans
Morgans has been looking after families across west Fife and Kinross-shire since 1993, when the firm was established by Blair Morgan. We remain a family firm, with offices in Dunfermline and Kinross. Our Private Client team advises on Wills, Powers of Attorney, Guardianships and estates, and we know exactly how much difference careful drafting makes years later.
When you instruct us to prepare a Will, we take the time to understand your family, your assets and your intentions — and we record it properly. Where circumstances are sensitive, such as a second marriage, a blended family, a falling-out or a worrying diagnosis, we know how to put your wishes beyond reasonable argument. Where it helps, we may suggest a liferent trust or a similar structure to protect a surviving spouse and children at the same time.
We also help families on the other side of these situations, through dealing with estates and, where an adult has already lost capacity, Guardianship applications. Our fees are clear and agreed at the outset, and you deal with the same people throughout.
Talk to us about your Will
A Will is one of the few documents you will never see tested yourself. Your family will. An hour in our office now is a small price for the certainty that gives them later.
Get in touch to arrange a confidential chat with our Private Client team.
Dunfermline Office — Morgans, 33 East Port, Dunfermline, Fife, KY12 7JE · 01383 620222 Kinross Office — Morgans, 62 High Street, Kinross, KY13 8AN · 01577 863424
Email enquiries@morganlaw.co.uk or use the contact form on our website. You can also meet the team before you get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
Can a Will be contested in Scotland after someone has died?
Yes. Most challenges happen after death, usually raised by family members who believe the Will does not reflect what the deceased really wanted. The action is called production and reduction, and it is raised in the Sheriff Court or the Court of Session.
What are the main grounds for contesting a Will in Scotland?
There are four: lack of capacity, facility and circumvention, undue influence, and failure to meet the legal formalities for signing and witnessing. Two grounds are frequently argued together on the same facts, as they were in both Scott and Haq.
What does facility and circumvention actually mean?
Facility is a weakness of mind that makes someone easy to pressure. Circumvention is the improper pressure applied to take advantage of it. Lesion is the resulting harm. The three are assessed together, and where the first two are established the court does not require separate proof of loss.
How long does contesting a Will in Scotland take?
Longer than most people expect. Scott v Reeves took three years and three months from the action being raised to judgment, involving expert psychiatric evidence, hundreds of pages of medical records, counsel on both sides and a proof spread over two months. Haq ran for over two years and required ten witnesses at proof.
Who pays the legal costs?
The court decides expenses at the end. In Boyd, the sheriff indicated expenses would go against the daughter who brought the claim and lost. Where executors have to defend a Will, the cost of doing so falls on the estate — which means on the beneficiaries.
Can I be disinherited entirely in Scotland?
Not completely. A surviving spouse or civil partner and children have Legal Rights in the net moveable estate, which a Will cannot defeat. Heritable property such as a house is treated differently, so the practical value of those rights varies enormously. In Haq, the estate was tied up largely in heritable property, which meant the surviving spouse would have received relatively little under the earlier Will.
How long do I have to contest a Will in Scotland?
There is no single deadline covering every case, but delay is fatal in practice. Evidence becomes harder to find, witnesses forget, and the estate may already be distributed. Take advice as soon as you have concerns.
Is a homemade or DIY Will valid in Scotland?
It can be, if it meets the requirements of the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995. Validity is not usually the problem. The problem is what happens when someone questions it, because a homemade Will comes with no independent evidence of what you understood or intended — which is precisely what a court looks for.
Can a letter or a handwritten note change my Will?
Almost never. In Boyd v Boyd a letter found among the deceased’s papers was held to be instructions rather than a concluded testamentary act, and it changed nothing. If you want to alter your Will, a solicitor-drafted Will or codicil is the only reliable route.
Does a Power of Attorney let my attorney change my Will?
No. A Power of Attorney covers financial and welfare decisions during your lifetime only. A Will must be made personally by you, and only while you have capacity.
Does using a solicitor guarantee my Will cannot be challenged?
No, and anyone who says otherwise is overselling. The Will in Haq was challenged all the way to a full proof in the Court of Session. What proper advice does is put your Will in a far stronger position to survive that challenge, because there is a professional record of your capacity, your instructions and your understanding.
What happens if a Will is reduced by the court?
Reduction means the Will is set aside. Any earlier valid Will then takes effect — in Scott, that was the professionally drawn 2011 Will. If there is no earlier Will, the estate falls into intestacy and is distributed under fixed statutory rules that may suit nobody.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have concerns about a Will, please speak to a solicitor about your own circumstances.