How Lack of Information Triggers Probate Lawsuits

The most common cause of probate lawsuits is going to be lack of information, lack of disclosure. And when we don't get information, maybe somebody has said there is a will, but we don't have a copy of the will. Maybe somebody has said, "I'm in charge," but we don't have a copy of the trust. That's when everybody's imaginations kind of start to run away with them, because then we start imagining, well, what's in there? What did Mom and Dad put in there? What did Sibling put in there? Am I in it? Am I not?

And so usually, a lot of the times, we can actually avoid litigation when we get the information and just say, look, we need the document. Just give us the document, we can look at it and go from there. And so a lot of the times, that is what causes the litigation issues, is because nobody knows. And so you have to involve the court to force the disclosure.

So if we can write, you know, basically a demand letter, a formal letter that says, hey, under the law you have to disclose this, this isn't optional, you know, you can't hold it. You can't hold it here. I need you to send it out to the people entitled to it. A lot of the times, once they do that, we can kind of keep the court out of it and continue on and just sort of kind of monitor, rather than going through the litigation process.