Long Island Estate Litigation

Estate Litigation Attorney Serving Long Island

After someone’s incapacitation or death on Long Island, disputes may arise in connection with questions like how an estate is to be distributed, whether a guardianship is appropriate, and how to handle real estate after the death of the property owner. These are issues that can be subject to estate litigation for which it is imperative to retain a knowledgeable and trustworthy lawyer. If you are concerned about disputes related to an estate, Long Island estate litigation attorney Jules Haas can help you evaluate your legal options. He has more than 40 years of experience representing executors, administrators, heirs, beneficiaries, trustees, and other interested parties in such disputes.

Estate Litigation

Estate litigation can involve will contests, trust contests, accounting disputes, a surviving spouse’s right of election, breach of fiduciary duty, kinship proceedings, or trustee removal proceedings. Wills are often subject to challenge, though they are less likely to be subject to challenge if they were created by an experienced attorney. Grounds for a will contest include mistakes in executing the will, undue influence, fraud, failure to follow formalities, forgery, and a testator’s lack of testamentary capacity to make a will. For example, it might be appropriate to challenge a will on the grounds of lack of testamentary capacity if a testator developed Alzheimer’s and could no longer recognize his spouse and changed the terms of his will, as a result. For another example, it might be appropriate to challenge a will on the grounds of fraud and undue influence if there is evidence that a guardian intentionally lied to a ward about the ward’s children’s involvement in her care to manipulate her into leaving him with the house and other assets.

The grounds for a will contest may also be appropriate for purposes of challenging a trust, but there can be other reasons to challenge the trust, as well. Where, for example, a trustee has failed to live up to his fiduciary obligations through self-dealing with regard to trust funds, it may be appropriate to institute removal proceedings.

In other cases, when someone dies, relatives show up to claim a portion of the inheritance, and it becomes important to conduct kinship proceedings. These are proceedings in which the alleged heirs have the legal burden of proof to show it is more likely than not that they are heirs to the decedent’s estate. They will need to present proof and evidence that they had a blood relationship to the decedent. An estate litigation lawyer in Long Island can help you navigate all of these sorts of proceedings.

Real Property Disputes

When someone dies, he or she may leave behind real property. Sometimes if Long Island land is controlled by a trustee and held in trust, beneficiaries may come to find it is being mismanaged and ask for an accounting. If you are a beneficiary who has asked for an accounting and not been given one, you may seek a remedy under the Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act section 2205, which provides that the Court can order a fiduciary to file an accounting. If you eventually compel an accounting of the real property, but that accounting shows that the trustee was mismanaging the property, you can petition the court to remove the trustee. There are also situations in which tenants of a decedent are unwilling to voluntarily depart or leave the property after the owner’s death. In that case, it may be appropriate to petition for a turnover proceeding in which the fiduciary asks the court to order a third party to turn over property that is in the third party’s possession.

In Long Island, turnover proceedings may be initiated by executors or administrators, when it’s discovered that any estate property from bank accounts to personal property to stocks and other financial instruments is held by a third party who won’t return it.

Retain a Seasoned Estate Litigation Attorney in Long Island

There may be a lot at stake in Long Island estate litigation. You can and should discuss your situation with a seasoned attorney. Mr. Haas has represented people throughout Long Island for more than four decades. Whether you need to institute a will contest due to fraud or you need to seek an accounting from a trustee, you can contact us at (212) 355-2575 or via our online form. Mr. Haas provides a free review of cases, and his clients are charged according to reasonable fee structures.