Nassau County Will Contest

Nassau County is located on western Long Island in New York. Its population was roughly 1,390,907 in 2021. The median household income in the same year was $120,036. The county seat is Mineola. Outside of New York City, the county is the second-most populous one in the state. It is also one of the highest-income counties in the country. Nassau County residents, like people everywhere, should make wills to ensure that their property is distributed according to their wishes after they pass. Retaining a lawyer can help ensure the appropriate legal formalities are followed in creating the will. This can reduce the chances of a will contest being brought. However, will contests are filed for a host of reasons, and even wills created by lawyers are sometimes challenged. Sometimes the challenge is from a disinherited family member, while in other cases, a friend finds himself receiving an interest in the decedent’s estate that is smaller than what the decedent had said it would be. Experienced Nassau County will contest attorney Jules M. Haas represents proponents of wills, nominated executors, and those who wish to challenge wills. With forty years of experience, he is a dedicated and tenacious advocate for his clients and works to determine the strongest available strategy to pursue their goals.

A will contest is a type of estate litigation through which a party with standing may be able to challenge the validity of a will. Parties have standing when they have a pecuniary interest or monetary interest in a will. You can object to a will, for example, if you were an heir under a prior will and are receiving less under the new will.

Legal grounds under which your attorney can contest a will in which you have a pecuniary interest include improper execution, revocation, incapacitation, lack of testamentary capacity, fraud, and undue influence. Each of these requires proof of different elements. There are situations in which we may be able to assert multiple legal grounds to bring the will contest.

Suppose, for example, your father began to suffer from dementia and after you put him in a nursing home, he made a new will and named a staff member at the nursing home the sole beneficiary of his will. Under those circumstances, we might bring a will contest on the basis of lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, and fraud. The will contest procedure would then allow us to seek more information over the course of formal discovery to bolster your case. Discovery is the procedure by which each party to litigation can obtain documents and testimony in order to find relevant evidence for judicial proceedings.

To establish that the decedent had a lack of testamentary capacity, we’d need to prove he did not understand the will submitted to probate and its consequences, along with the extent of his property, and whether he knew who the natural objects of his bounty were. Generally, for example, the natural object of the decedent’s bounty would be a spouse or child.

Sometimes others purposefully try to confuse and mislead someone who is vulnerable. Suppose, for example, your mother died and left a vacation home to her other two children from a later marriage. If you discovered that they had knowingly lied and told your mother you defrauded her in connection with a family business in order to get the vacation home for themselves, you might have a claim to contest the will on the grounds of fraud.

When a will contest is successful, the will may be invalidated in part or in its entirety. Give seasoned Nassau County will contest attorney Jules M. Haas a call if you need to challenge or defend a will against which objections have been filed. Mr. Haas has more than forty years of experience and may be able to represent you. Professional guidance is essential to obtaining the best possible outcome in these sensitive matters. Contact us through our online form or at (212) 355-2575. We provide clients with representation under reasonable and flexible fee arrangements.