Assessing Testamentary Capacity (Part II)

Last week's post looked at the general rules for assessing the testamentary capacity of a will maker. In particular, six of the twelve main items to consider were listed.

As promised, this week's post lists the other six main issues to consider, which are as follows:

1. the person does not seem unduly influenced by others about their decision making; 
2. the person does not display an unreasonably low level of concern with the activities of other people (particularly their immediate family members); 
3. the person does not display an unduly low ability to adapt to change; 
4. the person did not appear to be prone to unduly losing things or themselves getting lost; 
5. there is no reason to believe the person has recently undergone a change in behaviour or experienced a change in personality; and
6. there is no reason to believe that there are any other factors present that might indicate impaired testamentary or decision-making capacity. 

In next week's post, we will consider some specific issues in relation to assessing testamentary capacity in a web-based environment.

Until next week.