Every matter on this page is a contested one, or an estate complicated enough that the usual forms do not reach it. Most start somewhere ordinary: an application gets filed, an executor stops returning calls, a building sits empty while the heirs argue about it. Find the description that matches your situation.
A will has been offered for probate, or already admitted, and you do not believe it reflects what the person actually wanted. The grounds are capacity, undue influence, forgery, defective execution, and revocation. The clock generally runs two years from the date the will was admitted, not from the death. Will contests in El Paso County.
There is no will, or the will does not dispose of everything, and the family does not agree on who the heirs are. A court decides it in a heirship proceeding, and the court must appoint an attorney ad litem for heirs whose names or locations are unknown. Marriages, parentage, and whether property is community or separate are where these are won. Contested heirship in El Paso County.
Most Texas wills create an independent executor who answers to almost no one until someone makes them. Removal grounds are specific: failing to account, gross misconduct or gross mismanagement, legal incapacity, and material conflicts of interest. The accounting demand is usually the first move. Removing an executor or administrator.
Self-dealing, undisclosed transactions, commingled accounts, distributions to one branch of the family and not another, and money that moved under a power of attorney before the death. Removal changes who holds the keys; a surcharge claim is what brings the money back. Breach of fiduciary duty.
A trustee who will not account, distributions that follow no standard in the document, trust property sold to the trustee, and amendments signed in the last months of a life. The deadlines here are not the will-contest deadlines, and the court you file in is a real choice. Trust litigation.
Court-supervised administration, where the representative needs an order before selling property and files an annual account with the judge. Slower and more expensive, and sometimes the only structure that protects the estate from the person running it. Dependent administration in El Paso County.
Closely held businesses, mineral and royalty interests, real property in more than one state or across the border, and estates large enough for a federal estate tax return. The nine-month return deadline and the portability election are where families lose the most money, usually without knowing it. Large and complex estates.
El Paso is one of a small number of Texas counties with a dedicated probate bench. Everything above is heard in one of these two courts, and in a county with statutory probate courts they hold exclusive jurisdiction over probate proceedings whether or not anyone is contesting.
Tex. Gov’t Code § 25.0731(b); Tex. Est. Code §§ 32.001(d), 32.005, 32.007.
All five sit in the Eighth Court of Appeals District, which is held in the City of El Paso. Tex. Gov’t Code §§ 22.201(i), 22.209(a).
We do not draft wills, and we do not handle uncontested administrations. Those are well served by other firms, faster and for less. We take matters where the value of the estate or the depth of the conflict justifies real representation, and if yours does not, we will tell you on the first call.
Bring what you have: the will if there is one, the date it was admitted to probate if it has been, and a short description of who is on the other side.
The first conversation is short and free.