Should someone contest a will?

On Behalf of | Jun 1, 2020 | Probate Litigation, Will Contests

There are various reasons as to why someone would want to contest a will. Maybe the person was surprised to find out that he or she has been left out of the will, or maybe the person has discovered that the will is not valid at all. Regardless of the reasons, it is important to consider the cost of contesting the will and whether it is recommended to do so or not.

What to know:

When someone is looking to contest a will, the person must look into the time limit that he or she has to contest it. In the state of Ohio, the time limits and procedures to contest a will is up to 3 months. Usually, the time starts to run the moment the will is sent to court.

Reasons to contest

One cannot simply contest the validity of the will without having a reason to do so. The most common reasons as to why someone might do this is when the person has discovered some irregularities in the will that challenge its validity. For example, one reason might be that the signature was missing or it was done with complete disregard to the proper formalities; another reason might be that the testator did not have the legal capacity to write the will; perhaps the testator was influenced by an external force that manipulated the testator into making the will in a certain way that contradicted his or her last wishes; finally, the will or some of its elements were forged or it was created fraudulently.

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