Estate Settlement · Contested Estates
Six months. Then the will is binding, whatever was wrong with it.
Will and trust contests, on either side.
Estate litigation is what happens when a family disagrees about a document written by someone who is no longer available to explain it. We handle both sides — bringing a contest where a will or trust does not reflect what the person actually intended or was capable of intending, and defending a fiduciary or a beneficiary against a challenge that should not succeed.
The deadline
This is the one that ends cases before they start.
Under RSMo § 473.083, an interested person has six months from the probate or rejection of the will, or from the first publication of notice of letters, whichever is later. After that the probate is binding — no matter how strong the evidence would have been.
A second trap sits inside the first: a contestant who does not diligently serve the defendants risks dismissal at their own cost if service is not completed within ninety days. Filing is not enough.
For trusts, the timing analysis is different and turns on RSMo § 456.10-1005 and the terms of the instrument. Either way, the practical instruction is the same: if something looks wrong, get advice in weeks, not months.
The grounds
What a contest actually has to prove.
Lack of testamentary capacity
The standard is lower than most families expect and is measured at the moment of signing. A person with a dementia diagnosis can still have had capacity that afternoon. Contemporaneous medical records usually decide it.
Undue influence
Not persuasion or affection — influence that overcame the testator’s free will. Typically shown circumstantially: a confidential relationship, an isolated testator, and a beneficiary who was actively involved in procuring the document.
Improper execution
Missouri requires specific formalities. A will signed without the required witnesses, or witnessed improperly, may fail regardless of how clearly it states the person’s wishes.
Fraud
The testator was deceived about a material fact — who the beneficiaries were, what the document said, or what they were signing.
A later will or amendment
A subsequent instrument revoking the one admitted. These surface more often than people expect, usually in a drawer rather than a safe deposit box.
Fiduciary breach
Not a challenge to the document at all, but to how the personal representative or trustee has administered it. Different remedy, different deadline, often the better claim.
Most contests fail. That is worth hearing before you file.
The ones that succeed almost always have documentary support, not just a sense of unfairness.
Medical records around the signing, a change made late in life that reversed decades of consistency, an isolated testator, a beneficiary who found the lawyer and drove to the appointment. We will tell you honestly which kind you have, including when the honest answer is that the will is simply a will you dislike.
What we handle
Both sides of an estate dispute.
Bringing a contest
Where capacity, undue influence, execution or a later instrument is genuinely in question — and where the evidence supports it rather than only the grievance.
Defending a will or trust
Representing the personal representative, trustee or beneficiary defending an instrument that reflects exactly what the person intended. Defence is often the stronger position and is materially cheaper.
No-contest clauses
Whether a challenge triggers forfeiture under the instrument, and whether the clause is enforceable against the particular claim. This analysis comes before filing, not after.
Discovery of assets
Where estate property has been transferred, concealed or spent — often by someone holding a power of attorney during the decedent’s final years.
Power of attorney abuse
Lifetime transfers made under a durable power in the months before death. Frequently the real dispute, even where the family frames it as a will contest.
Construction and instructions
Where the document is ambiguous rather than wrong, a court can construe it — a faster and far cheaper route than a contest.
Meet Derek Haake
He drafts these documents, and he litigates them.
As a partner at Howard Haake from 2014 to 2022, Derek handled probate matters and litigated challenges to wills and trusts — prosecuting and defending. Having done both is what makes the assessment honest rather than encouraging: he knows what a defence looks like from the inside, which is the fastest way to judge whether a contest will survive one.
He then spent three years as a Vice President and Estate Settlement Officer at Bank of America Private Bank, administering estates as the institutional fiduciary. That is the vantage point most estate litigators lack — he has been the fiduciary whose conduct is under scrutiny, and he knows what a properly documented administration looks like.
And he drafts wills and trusts. A lawyer who writes these instruments reads a contested one differently: the signing ceremony, the witnesses, the drafting file and the lawyer’s notes are where these cases are actually decided.
Common questions
Contesting a will or trust in Missouri, answered.
How long do I have to contest a will?
Six months. RSMo § 473.083 runs from the probate or rejection of the will, or from the first publication of notice of letters granted on the estate, whichever is later. After that the probate is binding on everyone.
This is a hard bar, not a guideline. Families routinely lose viable claims by spending five months deciding whether to upset anyone, then discovering the deadline has weeks left and the evidence takes longer than that to gather.
And filing alone is not enough: a petitioner who does not diligently serve the defendants may have the petition dismissed at their own cost if service is not completed within ninety days.
If you think something is wrong, the first conversation should happen in the first weeks. It costs nothing and it preserves the option.
My father had dementia. Does that mean the will is invalid?
Not by itself. Testamentary capacity is measured at the moment of signing, and the standard is lower than the standard for most other legal acts — broadly, whether the person understood the nature of the act, the general extent of their property, and who the natural objects of their bounty were.
Capacity also fluctuates. Someone with a dementia diagnosis can have had a lucid interval on the afternoon they signed, and courts are well aware of it.
What actually decides these cases is contemporaneous evidence: medical records from around the signing date, the drafting attorney’s notes and observations, who was present, and whether the disposition itself is consistent with what the person had said and done for years. A sudden reversal favouring a recent arrival is a very different case from a long-standing plan.
My sibling isolated my mother and now gets everything. Is that undue influence?
Possibly — and it is proved circumstantially, because there is rarely a witness to it. Courts look for a confidential or fiduciary relationship, a testator who was dependent or isolated, active involvement by the beneficiary in procuring the instrument, and a disposition that is a marked departure from the person’s prior intentions.
The strongest facts tend to be procedural rather than emotional: the beneficiary found the attorney, arranged the appointment, drove them there, sat in the meeting, or communicated the instructions on the testator’s behalf. Attorneys who draft wills are alert to this, and their file often documents it either way.
Be aware that a will leaving more to the child who provided years of care is not automatically suspect. Courts understand that too, and it is frequently the innocent explanation for the same pattern of facts.
There is a no-contest clause. Will I lose everything if I challenge?
Possibly, which is why this is analysed before anything is filed rather than after. A no-contest clause forfeits a beneficiary’s gift if they unsuccessfully challenge the instrument, and its practical bite depends on how much you stand to lose under the document as written.
Two things soften it. Not every proceeding is a “contest” — petitioning to compel an accounting, to remove a trustee, or to construe an ambiguous provision is often not, though this depends on the clause’s wording. And a beneficiary left a token amount has little to forfeit, which is exactly why disinheriting someone entirely can be strategically weaker than leaving them a meaningful sum.
The calculation is concrete: what you receive if you do nothing, what you might receive if you win, and what you forfeit if you lose. We run that before filing.
What does an estate contest cost, and is it worth it?
Estate litigation is expensive. Depositions of the drafting attorney and the witnesses, medical record review, sometimes expert testimony on capacity, and a case that can run a year or more. Fees are typically hourly, though some matters can be structured differently depending on the facts and the amount at stake.
The honest arithmetic: a contest over a modest estate frequently costs more than it recovers, and the money comes out of the same pot everyone is fighting over. Mediation resolves a large share of these, often better than a judgment would.
Defending is usually cheaper than contesting, and the estate ordinarily bears the cost of a fiduciary’s reasonable defence.
We will tell you at the consultation whether the numbers work. Sometimes the answer is that you are right about what happened and still should not file.
Can I challenge a trust the same way?
The grounds are broadly similar — capacity, undue influence, fraud, improper execution — but the procedure and the timing are not. Trusts are not admitted to probate, so the six-month bar in § 473.083 does not apply; the analysis runs through RSMo § 456.10-1005 and the instrument’s own terms.
There is also a practical difference. Trust disputes are frequently about administration rather than validity: a trustee who will not account, will not distribute, or is favouring themselves. Those claims do not require attacking the trust at all, and they are often both stronger and cheaper. See Beneficiary Representation.
Where a decedent had both a will and a trust, the two are analysed together — a pour-over will and a trust are one plan, and a challenge to one usually implicates the other.
Ready to start?
The clock is already running.
Twenty minutes, no commitment. Tell us what happened and what the document says. We will tell you which deadline applies, whether the evidence supports a challenge, and whether the numbers justify one.
Schedule a Free Consultation(314) 732-1547
Email derek@haakelawgroup.com · Offices in Wildwood, MO & St. Louis, MO (by appointment)
This page is general information about Missouri law, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Deadlines and grounds depend on the particular facts and instrument. Consult a licensed attorney about your situation.