As you might suspect, bringing a complex trust contest could substantially raise the cost of contesting a trust.
What makes a trust contest complex? A trust contest may be complex if a substantial amount of money is at stake (typically $1 million or more). A trust contest may be complex if the trustee is defending the trust against your contest. A trust contest may be complex if a long, drawn-out discovery process is needed to accumulate evidence, such as the deposition of multiple witnesses and the retention of experts (e.g., physicians, handwriting analysts), to support your claim. Of course, these are not the only qualities that could make a trust contest complex; they are just some of the most common.
Take the example of our “Sugar Daddy Abuser” case. This case was highly complex due to a number of factors. For one, the settlor, despite being a senior, was not incapacitated in a traditional sense. Second, the contestants were not directly related to the settlor; rather, they had been the nieces and sister of the settlor’s former husband and had been named as beneficiaries only in the settlor’s prior trust, which perhaps made them less-than-sympathetic figures. Lastly, a reputable and well-known estate planning firm in Los Angeles had prepared the trust at issue, which suggested the trust was created according to established rules and procedures.
Because of these factors, proving the invalidity of the trust would be an uphill battle for our lawyers. While it was clear to our lawyers that a new boyfriend had intentionally entered the settlor’s life at a time when he had been vulnerable and lonely to benefit from his substantial wealth, they would need to not only prove that the settlor didn’t intend for his new boyfriend to inherit his wealth, but that the settlor amended his trust as a result of his new boyfriend’s undue influence.
It also would be a significant challenge for our lawyers to prove their clients, the contestants, had standing to contest the trust, since their relation to the settlor had dissolved when his divorce from his former husband was finalized. In California, gifts made to a former spouse in a trust or will automatically are voided. Based on this rule, it would be logical to assume gifts made to the family members of former spouses would automatically be voided as well.
Our lawyers conducted a far-ranging discovery to gather the evidence they needed to prove how far the settlor’s boyfriend had been willing to go to be named the sole trustee and beneficiary of the trust. They also needed evidence to paint an accurate picture of just how broken and mentally unsound the settlor had been at the time he executed his new trust.
Our lawyers’ hard work paid off in the end, as our clients received a settlement that approximated the value of their inheritance under the prior trust. Needless to say, it was expensive for our clients to contest the trust due to the extreme complexity of the case. However, it was a cost worth paying for our clients, who couldn’t have been more satisfied with the results our lawyers achieved for them.
If you are unsure where on the complexity spectrum your trust contest falls, a knowledgeable lawyer can provide helpful insight.
