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Contesting a Parent's Will in New York
https://legiswiki.com/en/p/10172/contesting-a-parents-will-in-new-york
Contesting a parent's will in New York involves several key considerations and legal grounds. Here's a summary of the process and requirements: Legal Grounds for Contesting a Will To contest a will in New York, you must have valid legal grounds. These include: Lack of Testamentary Capacity: The de...

Will Contest Grounds

Will contest grounds refer to the legal reasons or bases on which a person can challenge the validity of a will in probate court. These grounds assert that the will does not truly represent the testator’s (the person who made the will) genuine intentions or that the will is otherwise invalid under the law.

Common grounds for contesting a will include:

  • Lack of testamentary capacity: The testator was not mentally competent or lacked the legal capacity to understand the nature and consequences of making the will at the time it was signed.
  • Undue influence: The testator was pressured, coerced, or manipulated by another person to make or change the will in a way that does not reflect their true wishes.
  • Insane delusion: The testator was suffering from a false belief or delusion that affected the will’s provisions.
  • Duress: The testator was forced to sign the will against their free will.
  • Fraud: The will was procured by deceit or misrepresentation.
  • Improper execution: The will was not signed or witnessed according to legal requirements.
  • Forgery: The will or signature was forged.
  • Revocation or mistake: The will was revoked or there was a mistake in its drafting.
  • Violation of legal inheritance rights: For example, failure to comply with forced heirship laws in some jurisdictions.

A will contest is a formal legal proceeding where an interested party—someone who stands to gain or lose from the will—raises these objections to challenge the will’s validity. The court’s role is not to interpret the will’s meaning but to determine whether the will is valid and truly represents the testator’s intent.

In practice, contesting a will involves gathering substantial evidence such as prior wills, medical records, witness testimonies about the testator’s mental state or undue influence, and filing a petition in probate court within a specified timeframe (often around 120 days after probate begins).

Thus, will contest grounds are essentially the legal justifications that must be proven to successfully dispute a will’s validity in court.

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