Q: A mother has a will made due to increasing age and to be prepared, she has two sons whom were both given her estate to split with special directions. If one wanted to live in the home the other would have to buy out the other half. One of the sons since has become disrespectful and has made death threats to the mother. The mother wants to re-write the will leaving that son out of the will. If and when that son contests the will what will be needed to uphold the will’s contents so the disrespectful son received nothing? (Pittsburgh, PA)

A: The mother needs to have her new will prepared by an attorney. Anybody can say they may “contest” a will if they feel they were excluded, but doing it is difficult. They will need an attorney to challenge the will and the legal grounds to do so are very limited and generally hard to prove. An attorney can be a witness to your mother’s competency and will give the added assurance that the will has no technical deficiencies that would render it facially invalid.