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We have 4 guests online| Can you probate a will after four years? |
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A will has to be filed for probate within four years of the death of the testator. After four years, a will can be filed as a muniment of title but only if the person filing the will is not in default. When a late filed will is opposed, the issue is usually concerned with whether or not the person filing the will late was in default. In a case on this issue decided in 2011, the testator had children by a prior marriage. His wife had children by a prior marriage. He executed a will leaving everything to his wife if she survived him. The testator died in 2002. No will was probated by his wife. Six years later, she died. While going through her papers, her children found the will. Although it was more than four years after the testator died, the wife's children filed the will for probate. A daughter from the testator's first marriage contested the probate contending that the wife's children were in default for not filing it within four years. (If the testator died intestate, his children from the prior marriage would inherit his property, not the wife.) The Court sided with the wife's children. It ruled that just because the wife was in default for not filing the will within four years, her children were not in default. They testified that they were not aware of the will until after their mother had died. The Court said that if they didn't know about the will and were not negligent in finding it, they were not in default. 343 S.W.3d 899. While a will normally has to be filed within four years, a person not in default may file one after four years if he is not in default. |