A Legal MinuteWill contests & capacity
What Happens When a Probate Gets Contested
The short answer
When someone contests a will or trust after a personal representative has been informally appointed, the estate continues to be probated but the matter moves into litigation, which does not necessarily make the probate formal. Informal appointment is decided without a judge, while formal probate involves seeing a judge in the beginning steps.
From the full episode Contesting Wills in Arizona: Key Insights and Challenges (19:15).
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Transcript
Whenever we are contesting any kind of testamentary document, a will, a trust that's, you know, part of the court record, we have something open. Informal appointment, as we've discussed, is where there's no judge involved. Somebody gets appointed based on informal documentation. A specialized clerk makes a decision regarding this of, "Hey, everything looks fine."
If someone comes in after somebody's already informally been appointed, the estate continues to be probated, but now we're looking at litigation, which I've spoken about in a previous episode, what probate litigation is, the steps. And so it doesn't necessarily make it go formal.
The only difference between an informal probate and a formal probate in Arizona is the beginning steps. In a formal, you see a judge; informal, you don't see a judge.
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