A will contest is not won by showing that the will was unfair. An El Paso County probate judge works through a short list of questions, and the first two can end the case before anyone looks at the will itself.
A no on either of the first two ends it. The court never reaches the rest.
Only an “interested person” can contest a will, and the Estates Code defines that term by financial stake: an heir, a devisee, a spouse, a creditor, or anyone else holding a property right in or a claim against the estate. A long-time friend, a caregiver, or a stepchild who was never named in any version of the will usually does not qualify.
Standing is the first thing the other side attacks. It costs them almost nothing to raise and it ends the case if it lands. Settle that question before you spend money on anything else.
Tex. Est. Code § 22.018.
Once a will is admitted to probate, a contest generally has to be on file within two years. A suit to cancel a will for forgery or other fraud gets two years from the date the fraud was discovered, and a person under a legal disability gets two years from the date the disability is removed.
The deadline is rarely the real constraint. While the clock runs, the executor closes accounts, sells real property to buyers who know nothing about your claim, and pays money out. Witnesses to the signing move away, and memories of a signing ceremony go stale quickly. A contest filed in the twenty-second month is timely and usually much weaker than the same contest filed in the third. Filing early also preserves your ability to ask the court to hold up distributions before the estate is empty.
Tex. Est. Code § 256.204.
El Paso County has two statutory probate courts. Both sit in the El Paso County Courthouse at 500 E. San Antonio Avenue. In a county that has statutory probate courts, those courts hold exclusive jurisdiction over probate proceedings, contested or not, so a will contest here is not going to be moved to a district court.
Tex. Gov’t Code § 25.0731(b); Tex. Est. Code § 32.005.
The whole administration, from the application through the final decree and the discharge of the last representative, counts as a single proceeding for jurisdictional purposes. In practice that means a contest brought years later goes back to the court already holding the estate, under the original cause number, often in front of a judge who has already seen your family.
Tex. Est. Code § 32.001(d).
A party to a contested probate proceeding is entitled to a jury trial as in other civil actions. Will contests often turn on questions a jury is comfortable answering: who drove the decedent to the lawyer’s office, who was in the room during the signing, who suddenly had the online banking password.
A jury is not always the right call. It adds months and cost, and some records read better to a judge who hears capacity evidence every week. Decide early either way, because the demand has to be filed and the fee paid in time.
Tex. Est. Code § 55.002.
Expect to mediate before you get a trial setting. A Texas court can refer a pending dispute to an alternative dispute resolution procedure on its own motion or on a party’s motion, and probate judges use that authority. Prepare for the mediation the way you would prepare for a hearing. It is where most contests actually end.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 154.021.
We handle contested matters. We do not draft wills, and we do not take uncontested administrations. If nobody is actually fighting over this estate, we will say so on the first call and point you to a firm that does routine probate work.
If the will you are worried about was admitted in Probate Court No. 1 or No. 2, we can tell you on the first call whether you have standing and how much of the two years is left.
The first conversation is short and free.