No-Contest Clauses

‘No-contest clauses’ are designed to discourage or eliminate challenges to the validity of trusts or wills or to the transfer of property to trustees or, sometimes and more widely, to the decisions of trustees or personal representatives. Since it is not possible in law to prevent a beneficiary from launching a challenge because that would attempt to oust the jurisdiction of the court, the technique usually employed is to exclude a complaining beneficiary from benefit or to provide that her interest is forfeit either permanently or while the challenge is maintained or at the discretion of the trustees. The extent to which it is legally possible to effect an exclusion or to forfeit the interest is considered in this chapter. The principal reasons for their inclusion are considered below.