03 | He worked the farm for decades and got nothing

You work the family farm your whole life, then it's left to someone else.

When drafting a will, the law says you don't have to be fair or equal in deciding who will receive your estate.

So, after you pass away, can disgruntled family members or friends challenge your will in the courts? Conflicts over inheritance arise in many families but are particularly fraught and complex in farming families.

Andrew Lawson of the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law at the University of New England explains why the farm behaves almost like a third party in the family, and how the courts weigh need over fairness. 

He unpacks a $20 million farm fight where two siblings sued the estate and only one won, and the High Court case of a share farmer who toiled for decades on the promise the land would be his, only to see it left to someone else.

The Law Report's special series Over My Dead Body looks at farming family fallouts over inheritance and the unique challenges they create around succession.

This conversation does not represent or replace legal advice.