Why multi-million estates are crumbling to dementia, age claims

Several High Court rulings show just how fragile testamentary intent becomes when mental capacity wavers. [Courtesy]

When an elderly person signs their will, few imagine that declining memory or serious mental illness could later destroy those final wishes.

Yet that is exactly what happens in courts across the country, sometimes years after death, when aggrieved beneficiaries challenge the document purporting to be the testator’s last wishes.