Contested Will:

A will contest. When a will is probated obviously the terms of the will are pretty straightforward and they say who it is who’s supposed to get what it is in the estate. There are times when there are relatives who think -- or friends who think they should get more than what they had gotten under the will or they think that the testator when he wrote the will might have had it written under undue influence by someone, that maybe his wishes were not the wishes that he thought he had and put to paper. This is the beginnings of what is called a will contest. One of the heirs or one of the potential heirs then can bring the entire matter to court and can dispute the entire matter and get a judge to decide whether or not either the testator should have done one thing and ended up doing another or in fact that one relative may have received or should have received something and didn’t receive the right amount. All of this is ripe for litigation, and that’s part of what I do as part of my practice.