My mom passed away suddenly, and we found out she changed her will about a week before. My siblings think she wasn't mentally competent at that point because she had early-stage Alzheimer's, and they want to challenge it. Can we actually do that, and what kind of evidence would we need?
You can challenge a will on grounds of lack of mental capacity, but you'd need solid evidence - medical records showing her cognitive state at the time of signing, testimony from doctors who treated her, possibly an evaluation of what she actually understood when she made the change, and details about whether the person drafting the will did anything suspicious (like isolating her or pushing her toward certain decisions).
The timing alone won't be enough; courts see people update wills near the end of life all the time, so you'd really need to prove she couldn't grasp what assets she had, who her family was, or what she was doing with her property at that specific moment.
Don't try to challenge it without consulting an estate lawyer first - this gets expensive fast and you need someone who knows your state's specific rules, since they vary wildly.
Mental capacity challenges hinge on proving she couldn't understand what she was doing when she signed. You'd want medical records from around that time (and ideally before), testimony from her doctors about her cognitive decline, maybe an independent neuropsych evaluation if one was done, and witness statements from people who saw her regularly. The timing alone - a week before death - doesn't automatically mean she was incompetent; courts see that all the time. What matters is whether she had lucidity at that specific moment. Did she have a diagnosis of Alzheimer's before the will was changed, or did it come out afterward? That's a huge difference, because if it was diagnosed after, you've got much less to work with.
One thing that trips people up: get those medical records ASAP before they're harder to access. Talk to the lawyer about what "competent enough to make a will" actually means legally in your jurisdiction - it's often a lower bar than people think, and it's not the same as being competent to manage complex finances.
The timing alone isn't what makes or breaks a challenge - it's trickier than that. People update wills all the time when they're perfectly sharp, and a week before death doesn't automatically suggest incompetence. That said, if she genuinely had early-stage Alzheimer's documented, that *could* be relevant, but you'd need to show she specifically lacked capacity at the moment she signed, not just that she had the diagnosis.
My neighbor went through this after her dad died, and honestly it was messier than she expected. He'd changed his will a few months before the end, cut out one daughter entirely, and the family assumed he was confused because of his declining health. Turned out he just had a grudge - his doctor confirmed he was lucid when he signed. They dropped the challenge fast once they realized they'd need medical testimony proving otherwise, because that meant deposing his doctors, getting records, maybe even a neuropsych evaluation done retrospectively (which is weaker evidence anyway). The legal fees alone made it not worth pursuing.
What you actually need is contemporaneous medical evidence - so records from around the time she signed the will showing what her cognitive state was. Doctor's notes, test results, anything timestamped close to that date. If she saw a neurologist or did any cognitive testing, that matters. You'd probably also want witness testimony from whoever was present when she signed - did she seem confused, did she understand what she was doing, could she articulate why she was making changes? And yeah, talk to an estate lawyer in your state before going further, because the burden of proof and what counts as "evidence" varies. Some states make it harder to challenge than others, and the costs spiral fast if nobody's willing to settle early.
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