Were you disinherited from a Florida estate ?
Were you cut out from a Florida will ?
Did someone interfere with your Florida inheritance ?
If so, you may be thinking about challenging the Florida will. You may be thinking about filing a Florida probate lawsuit, or a civil lawsuit for damages and tortious interference with your inheritance.
Here are six steps you need to consider in Florida to try to get your inheritance and to try to enforce your rights as a beneficiary:
- Find a Florida lawyer who handles probate litigation and, specifically, who can handle a challenge to the Florida will. Florida probate litigation, and inheritance lawsuits, are a unique subspecialty of Florida law. Find a Florida probate lawyer who has litigation skills and who has actually tried Florida estate cases.
- Review the Florida probate court file immediately. You need to see every legal document that’s been filed with the Florida probate court. If there is no Florida probate, you need to open one up. Don’t delay.
- Review all probate documents that have been sent to you by the lawyer for the Florida probate, or the Florida estate. You may, or may not, be getting court filed documents in the mail. These are very important, cannot be ignored, and, perhaps most importantly, have very short deadlines. If you blow a deadline, or miss a filing, you will blow your chances for a successful inheritance lawsuit and your rights in the Florida probate process may be extinguished.
- File your challenge to the Florida will in the probate proceeding. When you challenge a Florida will, your Florida probate lawyer needs to make specific objections, and reasons why the Florida will is not valid.
- Conduct discovery. Search for facts, documents, and witnesses who can help you prove your case for the Florida will challenge — and why the Florida will is invalid.
- Prepare for your Florida inheritance lawsuit. You may file a challenge to the Florida will in the probate proceeding. You may also decide to seek money damages, and a Florida jury trial, by filing a separate inheritance lawsuit, such as a lawsuit for money damages called “tortious interference with an inheritance.”
Challenging a Florida will requires careful analysis of the Florida probate law, the consideration of what your inheritance rights are, discovery of detailed facts, and preparation for a probate trial. The good news is that there are many experienced, knowledgeable, very good Florida probate lawyers who litigate. Consider finding a Florida lawyer who practices in this subspecialty of the law, and who not only has knowledge of Florida estate law, but who also has trial skills.