Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts

You need to contact an attorney immediately and challenge the Will as being created under undue influence. Your stepmother unless they were divorced or had an antenuptual agreement will be entitled to the first $200,000 plus half the estate.

This type of litigation is expensive and as such, you should be aware that unless the amount is significant or the case is very clear, that it may not be worth doing.

Please feel free to contact me if you have anyother questions.

I am sorry to hear about this. Your options here proceed on two tracks: a challenge to the will and a challenge to the trust. The challenge to the will has deadlines associated with it. These deadlines are described in detail on my blog which can be accessed at www.lawfang.com. Stated simply, you must act as soon as possible following the filing of the will in the Probate Court and receipt of the notice of probate and nomination of the executor of the estate. The deadline in that notice is absolute and you should be in touch with an attorney immediately. The deadline for challenging the trust is not nearly as severe, but you might want to move rapidly on that as well, so as to prevent the second wife from transferring any of the assets she received through the trust.

To summarize the grounds for voiding a will or a trust: The two you should be most interested in are (a) a lack of mental capacity and (b) undue influence. The first is somewhat self-explanatory but in any challenge based on this, you would need an expert physician to review medical records and render an opinion that your father-in-law did not have sufficient mental capacity to understand the consequences of these actions. Regarding undue influence, it is highly likely that the burden of proof on this issue would shift to his second wife to show that the transfers were not the result of undue influence. Of course, she could offer evidence that they renewed their proverbial vows, that she took care of him during his darkest hours, and that he amended his will and trust based on this. This wouldn't necessarily carry the day but you can expect this to be the argument from her side.