{"id":7225,"date":"2019-10-09T15:38:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T19:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=7225"},"modified":"2019-10-10T08:51:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T12:51:49","slug":"standing-of-heirs-to-challenge-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=7225","title":{"rendered":"Standing of Disinherited Children to Challenge Will"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The children of the decedent, as intestate heirs, might not have standing to challenge the probate of a will when there is an earlier will that has not been challenged and which provides no benefit to the children.  <em>William E. Fink Estate (No. 1)<\/em>, 9 Fid.Rep.3d 247 (Lycoming Co. O.C. 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court having raised the issue of standing <em>sua sponte<\/em>, and allowing the parties to brief the issue of standing, the court found that the children of the decedent who had been disinherited by an earlier will did not have a &#8220;substantial, direct, and immediate&#8221; interest in the probate of the current will.  <em>William E. Fink Estate (No. 2)<\/em>, 9 Fid.Rep.3d 253 (Lycoming Co. O.C. 2019). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[Note:  In both opinions, the court cites Superior Court decisions for the proposition that standing is jurisdictional and cannot be waived.  However, as I have noted before, the Supreme Court has ruled several times that standing is <em>not<\/em> jurisdictional and <em>can<\/em> be waived.  See &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=2904\">Standing Is not Jurisdicational<\/a>.&#8221;  That does not mean that the trial court was wrong to raise the issue <em>sua sponte<\/em>, or that it was wrong in concluding that the contestants did not have standing.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The children of the decedent, as intestate heirs, might not have standing to challenge the probate of a will when there is an earlier will that has not been challenged and which provides no benefit to the children. William E. &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=7225\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[210,156,76],"class_list":["post-7225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-jurisdiction","tag-standing","tag-will-contest","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7237,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225\/revisions\/7237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}