A resource for lawyers and the public in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for information on will contests, trust disputes, guardianships, conservatorships, elder exploitation, fiduciary duty claims, and other probate litigation disputes.
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In settling an estate/trust dispute, parties generally want their settlement agreement to, not only resolve the issues in contention, but also protect against the initiation of future litigation among the parties. Settlement agreements almost always include broad mutual releases of claims and sometimes also set forth contractual promises that no further litigation will be initiated, […]
This order is offered for educational purposes only. References to law and rules may not be current or accurate. Counsel must evaluate whether the order has utility in a given case. (Note: Ralph Holmes is currently retired from McLane Middleton. For information on this or other probate litigation issues, please contact Alexandra Cote at alexandra.cote@mclane.com.) […]
While much has been written in the press about the sensational allegations in Santilli v. Carman, nothing has been written to my knowledge about the interesting issues of probate law it presents. As the case progresses, Alexandra Cote and I will post on some of these issues. In Santilli, which is before the NH Trust […]
This order is offered for educational purposes only. References to law and rules may not be current or accurate. Counsel must evaluate whether the order has utility in a given case. (Note: Ralph Holmes is currently retired from McLane Middleton. For information on this or other probate litigation issues, please contact Alexandra Cote at alexandra.cote@mclane.com.) […]
Forum selection is an important decision in fiduciary litigation. For New Hampshire cases, we prefer the Probate Court over the Superior Court because Probate Court judges daily consider fiduciary principles, law, and practice issues. In some cases, such as a dispute over an administrator’s account, the Probate Court has exclusive jurisdiction. In other cases, the […]
This order is offered for educational purposes only. References to law and rules may not be current or accurate. Counsel must evaluate whether the order has utility in a given case. Download
When clients tell a partner of mine that they want to leave their beloved vacation home to their children, he half-jokingly responds, “Why would you do that to them?” and then explains that, all too often, family disputes develop over grievances about uneven use, contributions to maintenance, tax, insurance and other expenses, and other property […]
This order is offered as a sample for educational purposes only. References to law and rules may not be current or accurate. Counsel must evaluate whether the order has utility in a given case. (Note: Ralph Holmes is currently retired from McLane Middleton. For information on this or other probate litigation issues, please contact […]
In a recent case, a beneficiary who is challenging the validity of a trust requested that the Probate Court order that our client trustee, who also is a pro se beneficiary, may not draw on trust funds to defend the action. We argued in our objection that the trustee has a duty to defend the […]
In In re Estate of Mesiti, the NH Supreme Court ruled that heir status alone confers standing to contest a will, notwithstanding the existence of multiple prior facially valid wills that do not benefit the heir contestant and which he does not allege are invalid. Although the Supreme Court decided the question in an order, […]
