Dallas Probate Attorney — Estate & Trust Litigation. We are Will Contest, Trust Dispute & Fiduciary Litigation Lawyers In Texas

Texas Will Contest, Trust Dispute, and Fiduciary Litigation Attorneys
Spencer, Johnson, Harvell & Spencer, PLLC devotes its practice to estate, trust, and fiduciary litigation across Texas. We try will contests, trust disputes, and file claims against executors, administrators, trustees, trust officers, guardians, and agents under powers of attorney. We are based in Dallas and regularly appear in the courts in  Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin Counties and surrounding counties, including Kaufman, Ellis and Grayson Counties We travel as far as El Paso County and cover the Perman Basin, which includes Lea, Eddy, Chaves, and Roosevelt Counties in southeastern New Mexico. Kevin Spencer is licensed in both Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota, so we handle Permian Basin matters on either side of the state line without, necessarily, bringing in outside counsel. We travel anywhere else in Texas if the case, facts and value justifies our involvement.
 
Our clients usually find us at one of the hardest moments of their lives. Someone they loved has died, and along with that grief comes a legal process most people have never seen or navigated before, governed by specific rules unknown to most. Our job is to be the steady presence in that process: to explain what is happening, tell you plainly where you stand, and fight for what your loved one wanted and meant for you to have.
 
Will Contests Based on Lack of Testamentary Capacity
A Will is only valid if the person signing it had the testamentary capacity (a legal term) to know and understand the natural objects of their bounty and their claims upon him or her, to, generally, know the property they own, to understand the business in which they are engaged, i.e., signing a Will, its terms, and its effect on their property and its division after death, and to hold those elements in their mind long enough to formulate a reasonable judgment about them. what they were doing.
 
Will Contests Based on Undue Influence
A person can have capacity and still be a victim. When age, illness, dementia, medication, or injury has taken that ability away, the person is vulnerable, becomes reliant on other people making them susceptible to an influence they would not normally succumb to, i.e., an influence that overpowers the mind of the testator causing them to sign a document they would not have otherwise signed but for that influence.. Too often, someone the family trusted seizes on to that vulnerability and arranges for a new Will to be prepared, often with the help of a compliant an attorney (who should have known better), that disinherits those the decedent always wanted to benefit. Undue influence occurs when someone uses pressure, isolation, dependence, fear, or manipulation to overpower a person's own free will, so that the Will, Codicil, or other testamentary document they sign reflects the influencer's wishes rather than their own. The signature is real, but the decision behind it was not the Decedent’s testamentary desire or intent. We obtain as much of that compliant attorney’s file, if an attorney was involved, as possible and we investigate the medical history, the circumstances of the signing, the participation of all those involved that benefit. As much of that evidence as we can collect will be presented in Court and hopefully admitted into evidence for consideration by a jury to prove a bogus Will or trust amendment invalid. Texas law does not allow a Will procured as the result of undue influence to stand, and we have the experience to prove the bogus testamentary document was procured through undue influence and how it happened.
 
Trust Contests and Challenges to Other Documents
The same abuses that produce an invalid or bogus Will also produce bad trusts, deeds, powers of attorney, beneficiary designations, promissory notes, and account changes. Because these are currently binding contracts and conveyances rather than testamentary, the legal standard is different. The question is: Whether the person had the mental capacity (not testamentary capacity) to understand the business in which he or she was engaged and the nature and consequences of the transaction once entered. When a trust agreement or deed appears at the end of life and departs sharply from decades of consistent historical estate planning and expression of testamentary desires, and happens to benefit the person who was controlling the decedent's affairs, completion of that type of transaction is instantly suspect and deserves scrutiny. Who was involved? How and how much? How much did he or she or their family members or other interests, i.e., charitable, benefit? We challenge documents signed without the required mental capacity, documents procured through undue influence, and documents that are simply not what they were represented to be.
 
Fiduciary Liability: Holding Executors, Trustees, Guardians, and Agents Accountable
Executors, administrators, trustees, guardians, and agents under a power of attorney hold are agents and hold their principal’s property in a trust relationship in their best interest. Texas law holds them to the highest duties of loyalty, candor, and care. Heirs and beneficiaries are entitled to disclosure of information, to an accounting, and to a have a fiduciary that always acts in their best interest and puts their interest first and above his, her or its own, i.e., that will avoid self-dealing. When a fiduciary stops communicating, refuses to account, delays without explanation, self-deals, wastes assets, mismanages or takes property outright, the beneficiaries have the advantage of asserting the fiduciary relationship when seeking remedies to compel accountings, removal, surcharge, disgorgement, constructive trusts, and personal judgments against the fiduciary. We pursue those remedies, and we also defend honest fiduciaries who have been wrongfully accused.
 
How We Work With You
 
Whether you have just been served with a lawsuit or need one filed, we start by giving you an honest assessment of your position so that you can make the best decision available to you. We then pursue or defend every legitimate claim necessary to protect your rights and secure your inheritance.
 
Depending on the case, we work either on an hourly basis or for a contingency fee, in which our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you at trial or in settlement and you owe no attorney's fee if there is no recovery. Every case also involves out-of-pocket expenses and costs, include, but are not limited to filing fees, deposition and document production costs, copy charges, document storage, management and organization software fees, including use of our DISCO e-discovery platform, courier and overnight delivery fees, travel expenses, including gas, airfare and hotel accommodations, fees and expenses for local counsel if necessary, professional witnesses (expert) services, investigator’s services, mediator or arbitrator fees and expenses, court costs, charges by third parties unconnected to Attorneys but required to properly provide our services (“Expenses”). In an hourly arrangement you pay all expenses and costs. On a contingency matter, you choose how to pay for such Expenses, and are given the choice to pay for all of them as we go, with only the contingency fee subject to a percentage of the Recovery, or you can agree to add an additional four percent (4%) to the contingency percentage and we will cover and pay all Expenses and costs, start to finish, and you owe us nothing unless and until you recover something of value.
 
We are selective about the cases we accept, which is deliberate and means the cases we accept get the time and attention they deserve. From the first call forward, you and your best path, legally and otherwise, are our priority and work as a team to pick the best strategy to get you the best result possible