Florida Probate Litigation: Will Contests, Trust Disputes, and Undue Influence

Inheritance disputes are family disputes with a legal file attached. A parent's will that stood unchanged for decades is amended in the final year of life. A trust is restated to favor the child who moved in as caregiver, or the new spouse from a late marriage. Accounts are retitled quietly, and the rest of the family learns about it after the funeral. Florida probate litigation exists for exactly these situations: it is how courts decide whether the documents controlling an estate actually reflect what the person wanted, or what someone else wanted for them.

What is probate litigation?

Probate litigation covers the contested side of estates and trusts. The most familiar version is the will contest, a challenge to the validity of a will admitted to probate. Its close relative is the trust contest, which challenges a trust or, very often, a late amendment or restatement of one. The field also includes claims against the people running the estate or trust: personal representatives and trustees owe fiduciary duties, and beneficiaries can sue over self-dealing, mismanagement, failures to account, and improper distributions. Courts can surcharge a fiduciary for the losses caused, order repayment, and remove a personal representative or trustee who has breached the role, so the remedies reach the position as well as the money. Disputes over jointly titled accounts, beneficiary designations, and lifetime transfers made in the final years round out the picture, because a modern estate fight is rarely about the will alone. Florida also recognizes a claim for tortious interference with an expected inheritance, aimed at someone who, through fraud, undue influence, or other wrongful conduct, prevented a gift the decedent intended to make; on the right facts it reaches misconduct that a will contest alone cannot.

What is undue influence?

Undue influence is the workhorse theory of Florida inheritance litigation. It means the will or trust reflects the desires of someone who overpowered the mind of the person signing it, rather than the free choice of that person. Because no one confesses to it and it happens behind closed doors, Florida law allows it to be proven by circumstances, and gives challengers an important tool: when a substantial beneficiary who had a confidential relationship with the decedent was actively involved in procuring the document, a presumption of undue influence arises and the burden shifts to that beneficiary to explain themselves.

Active procurement is shown through familiar facts: the beneficiary found and hired the attorney, gave the instructions, was present for the discussions or the signing, knew the contents while others were kept away, arranged the witnesses, or kept the document afterward. The more of those boxes the evidence checks, the stronger the challenge becomes.

What makes a will or trust invalid?

Undue influence is one ground; there are others. Lack of capacity means the person signing did not understand, in a general way, the nature of their property, their family relationships, and the effect of the document. Capacity is measured at the moment of signing, which is why medical records, medication histories, and the observations of people who saw the person that week become central evidence. Fraud invalidates a document procured by deception, whether about the document itself or about facts that shaped it, such as lies told about another family member. Improper execution matters too: Florida imposes strict signing and witnessing formalities, and a document that fails them fails entirely. Finally, a genuine later document revokes an earlier one, so the sequence and authenticity of competing versions can decide everything.

Why do late-life changes cause so many fights? 

Because the conditions that produce them are the same conditions that produce legitimate suspicion. In the last years of life, a person may be isolated, dependent on one caregiver or one child, cognitively declining, and cut off from longtime advisors. Blended families sharpen the conflict: a late marriage or a companion in the final years creates a natural tension between the new spouse and the children of the first family, and Florida adds legal complexity of its own, since a surviving spouse has statutory rights, including an elective share of the estate, that exist regardless of what the documents say. None of this means every deathbed amendment is invalid. It means a significant change, made in dependency and isolation, in favor of the person controlling the environment, deserves scrutiny, and Florida law is built to give it that scrutiny.

Can a will punish you for contesting it? 

Some documents include a clause saying any beneficiary who challenges the will or trust forfeits their inheritance. In Florida, those clauses are unenforceable. The Legislature made a policy choice that people should be able to bring good-faith challenges to questionable documents without betting their entire inheritance on the outcome. A no-contest clause in a Florida will or trust is a scarecrow, and recognizing that changes the risk calculation for a beneficiary deciding whether to act.

What deadlines apply? 

Short ones, and they are unforgiving. Once formal notices are served in a probate administration, the window to object to a will's validity can be as brief as a few months, and in some circumstances as short as twenty days. Trust disputes carry their own limitation periods, some triggered by the trustee's disclosures. The practical rule: the papers that arrive after a death, notices of administration, trust notices, proposed accountings, are not formalities. Each one may be starting a clock, and a beneficiary who sets them aside for a season of grieving can wake up to find the courthouse door closed.

What should a concerned heir do first?

Move on the evidence and the deadlines at the same time. Request copies of the will, the trust and every amendment, and the prior versions; the pattern of changes tells the story. Identify the drafting attorney, because that file, who called, who instructed, who attended, is often the heart of the case. Preserve what you have: communications, photographs of the person's condition, names of caregivers and visitors. And get a legal assessment before positions harden at the family level, because inheritance cases settle most sensibly early, when the estate is intact and the fight has not yet consumed it.

Salomon Smith PLLC litigates inheritance, trust, and fiduciary disputes throughout South Florida, representing beneficiaries and fiduciaries alike. If a late change to a loved one's estate plan does not sit right, call (305) 297-1018 for a free consultation, or learn more about our litigation practice.

This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice.