Live Webinar: The Not-So-Silent Generation: Adult Children, Estrangement, and Family Provision Claims

Adult children continue to dominate family provision litigation - even when financially independent, decades out of the home, or long estranged from the deceased. Courts increasingly face the difficult question: what is “adequate and proper provision” for a child who was absent, excluded, or rejected? This session will explore how courts are responding to adult child claims in the context of estrangement, financial autonomy, and emotional complexity. Topics include:

• The evolving judicial approach to adult children - when “moral duty” survives estrangement, independence, or long periods of silence;
• How courts assess the significance of estrangement - including whether the cause of estrangement matters, and the impact of attempts at reconciliation;
• The evidentiary weight of letters, declarations, and solicitor notes - how the narrative around the relationship is constructed in court;
• The interplay between contribution, need, and relationship - what adult children must prove to succeed, and what testators (and lawyers) can do to respond;
• Strategic considerations, including managing intergenerational fairness and partial provision
• Recent case law involving adult child claimants, including those with limited or hostile relationships with the deceased.