When Dr Christine Gill last month successfully challenged her mother’s will, which had bequeathed the £2 million family farm in North Yorkshire to the RSPCA, it was just the latest in an increasingly long line of disputes over wills to have been picked over by the media.

Contentious probate is the new divorce. The cases have all the elements of human drama — money, family feuds, long-buried grudges, often mistresses and dark secrets — and are all the more intriguing because the key witness is, by definition, unavailable.

The High Court ruled that Dr Gill’s late father had coerced his wife to go against her own wishes to leave the farm to their daughter. Further, given Dr Gill’s work on the farm and that she had cared for her parents for more than 30 years, as well as assurances from both that she would inherit, the court said it would be “unconscionable” if she did not. The RSPCA intends to appeal.

The Gill case is evidence of a rising trend in probate disputes. Research by the London law firm Wedlake Bell this year found that 228 such disagreements reached the courts in 2008, compared with 83 in 2006. A survey of 3,000 people in March by another London firm, Seddons, found that one in ten had been or were in dispute after a death in the preceding six months.

Marvin Simons, Seddons’s head of dispute resolution, identifies three main causes: the property boom, which has produced more estates worth fighting over, a greater awareness of rights, and “more complicated and dysfunctional family structures” — problems can occur when parents divorce and have second families. He describes a “vulture syndrome” of greedy beneficiaries falling out; one in four people surveyed said legacies had caused rows with friends or family.

The size of some estates means the biggest law firms in the City get involved. Rupert Ticehurst, head of private wealth and charities at Herbert Smith, says challenges to a person’s capacity to make their will are increasingly common. “With people getting older and making wills in their 70s and 80s, this is more likely to be questioned,” he explains. Further, greater understanding of mental health means capacity can later be assessed from medical files.

There are various routes to challenging wills but “it’s not fair” is not enough, says Fay Copeland, head of contentious probate at Wedlake Bell. But this is emotional territory. “People see their legacy as a reflection of how the parent or grandparent felt about them,” she says. “You have to treat this differently from a commercial dispute.”

So lawyers need to offer more than legal help. Mark Keenan, the partner at the London firm Mishcon de Reya who acted for Dr Gill, says that will disputes “can be incredibly painful and stressful, and inevitably there is an element of counselling clients in the wider sense as well as advising them”.

Jeremy Kosky, litigation partner at Clifford Chance, says that an opportunity to rant can be cathartic for clients as well as part of the process of identifying all aspects of the problem. “It is often the moment when misgivings or misunderstandings become most apparent,” he says. “The best approach is always to let the rant run its course. Do not pretend it didn’t happen. Showing that you have listened is important and you can best do this by taking the points head on.”

This all makes mediation an attractive option, although Ms Copeland warns against trying it too early: “People do need time for anger.”

They also need time to understand the risks of continuing with litigation. In his review of litigation costs, Lord Justice Jackson observed that the Jarndyce v Jarndyce syndrome is still alive, “where, as occurred in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, the end of the litigation only came when the entire estate of the deceased had been swallowed up by costs”.

“No win, no fee” agreements and after-the-event legal expenses insurance are starting to crop up in this area — Mishcons put both in place during the Gill case.

Executors also have to think carefully when spending money on such disputes, adds Ms Copeland. “There is always the risk that if they don’t take the right course of action, the beneficiaries could take action against them.”

Charities too can find themselves in a difficult position when a legacy in their favour is challenged by family members. Mr Keenan recognises that “there is a concern within the charitable sector that if charities don’t fight these claims simply to avoid the adverse publicity that goes with a trial, they will be seen as a soft touch”.

Experts agree that it is impossible to draft a bomb-proof will — Mr Ticehurst recalls a case where the testator was even examined by a psychiatrist to confirm that he had capacity to make his will, only for a judge later to prefer the opinion of an expert who had not met him (capacity is a legal, rather than medical, test). But if you intend to exclude someone who might have expected to inherit, at least explain why in the will or a letter of wishes.

In broad terms, the law gives us freedom to dispose of our property after death however we wish. But Mr Ticehurst sees evidence of the courts starting to impose “a civil law-style forced heirship rule”. He says: “Judges’ moral road map is that a father should leave his assets to his children.”

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