Can you set "conditions" to a will?

Question

If I write out a will, can I set up specific conditions to be met? In other words, can you say "Mr X will receive Y dollars if he gives up smoking?" Is this legal?

Answer 1

Of course. You can set certain conditions to your Will, but if the Probate judge thinks your demands are unreasonable your Will can be thrown out of court.

Speak to a good Estate lawyer (in your homestate) about this.

*I worked as a paralegal for an Estate lawyer for 2 years.

Answer 2

Conditions in general are legal. The specific condition in your question may or may not be legal depending on where the will is probated. That would normally be where the person resided at the time of death. You should consult a probate attorney in the appropriate jurisdiction to properly draft a will with conditional gifts.

George T's advice about setting up a trust leaves out 1 important factor. You should ALWAYS have a will. At minimum you need a will to put anything you personally own at the time of death into the trust. Once the money is in a trust, it does provide more options regarding conditions of distribution than a will alone.

Answer 3

If you want to be able to do stuff like that you should probably set up a trust instead of a will. My grandmother has one with all kinds of different stipulations in it and it's rock-solid. She even has a thing in there where if somebody tries to sue to get money from it, then they are automatically ineligible to receive any benefits from the trust. Also, wills are public domain. Anybody can see what the will says. A trust is private and I'm pretty sure that the judge doesn't have nearly as much power over one as they would a will.

Answer 4

Yes, as long as they are enforcable and not against public policy.

An example of one against public policy is X number of dollars to my daughter if she divorces that worthless bum of a son-in-law.

This one is too vague to be meaningful. How long does he have to give up smoking for?

If I was Mr. X I could quit the morning of the probate hearing and "relapse" on the drive home. Might even stop and buy a very expensive cigar with your money.

But $20 to my newphew so long as he refrains from smoking, gambling and drinking until he reaches the age of 21 would be fine.

Answer 5

The conditions generally need to be met at the time the will is probated (when the estate is distributed).

So, you can put a condition "blah to Mr. X if he is married when I die" but they generally cannot have a bequest that hangs around in limbo until a condition is met.

Answer 6

Some conditional gifts are enforceable. Your example is not likely to be because all X has to do is certify he's given up smoking. Once he gets his bequest he can suddenly develop the need to smoke.

Answer 7

yes