Contesting a Will

Answer:

As an experienced Delaware County Estate Planning Attorney, I get questions all the time from clients about how to contest a will. The process of contesting a will is controlled in Pennsylvania by the state’s Orphan’s Court. This is a separate court in Pennsylvania that deals with wills, trusts, guardianships, and those types of materials that involve disposition of assets by an individual after their date of death.

In this particular process, if you believe the will has not been executed in a proper manner, there are two routes you can take.

The first route is to file with the register of wills what they call a caveat that says this will isn’t the right will. Doing this makes it clear that there is another will, which you are presenting as the right and valid will. You’re putting the register of wills on notice that they should not accept the first will and/or they should not move forward administration of the estate because they have the wrong will.

That process is determined by the register of wills with a short hearing, after which they will make a ruling. They will either accept the first will or accept the second will or make a determination whether the will is valid at all.

The second route is when there is a will that has been subject to probate, but you as a beneficiary believe someone has influenced the testator to change the terms of the will to benefit them. You may also believe the person who executed the will did not have sufficient capacity at the time that they executed it to understand what they are doing.

Did they know the objects of their bounty, their children, and their family members who would receive the benefits? Did they know what their assets were? Did they know they had a house? Did they know what was in their bank account? Those types of questions will need to be answered when contesting a will along these lines.

The process itself involves filing a petition with the Orphan’s Court in which you raise a contest of the will. The petition process requires you to file with the court, outlining what the will is.

It also outlines the details of the circumstances you believe led to this improper will being admitted into probate. This is then accepted by the register of wills for processing of the estate. You must then come forward with sufficient evidence to prove some other individual influenced the testator, that the testator had a weakened intellect, and because of that there was an opportunity to access them and to influence them.

You then have the opportunity to prove the new will was executed under diminished capacity, showing that the testator did not know the objects of their bounty, did not understand what they had, and they were in a state that they were not making an intelligent or knowledgeable decision.

The process begins a discovery with the permission of the court and determines which witnesses you wish to process before the court to prove your case of either undue influence or diminished capacity. The court will eventually hold a hearing to determine which will is to be followed based upon the evidence you presented.

The court will accept the previous will or the will that you wish to present to the court and will disregard the will that has been subject to undue influence or diminished capacity.