When a will looks wrong, a trustee will not answer questions, or an inheritance is slipping away, estate litigation is how you enforce your rights. These fights are painful because they are family fights — grief and money tangled together. Akiva Shapiro, Esq. represents beneficiaries, heirs, executors, and trustees across Long Island in Surrogate's Court, pressing for negotiated resolutions where possible and litigating without hesitation where necessary. He studies the governing will or trust in painstaking detail, because the rights that decide these cases are often not visible on a first read.
Will Contests: Undue Influence, Capacity, and Fraud
A will can be challenged — contested — on defined legal grounds, most commonly:
- Undue influence. Someone in a position of power over the will-maker — a caregiver, a late-life companion, one child controlling all access — pressured or manipulated them into a will they would not otherwise have made.
- Lack of capacity. The will-maker did not understand, in the way the law requires, what they owned, who their natural heirs were, and what the will did. Wills signed late in life, amid dementia, are frequent battlegrounds.
- Improper execution. The signing failed New York's formal requirements, such as the two-witness ceremony.
- Fraud or forgery. The signature is not genuine, or the will-maker was deceived about what they were signing.
Before objections are even filed, New York procedure allows a preliminary examination of the attesting witnesses and the attorney who drafted the will — a look inside how the will came to be, which often determines whether a contest is worth bringing at all.
Who Has Standing to Contest a Will
Not everyone who is unhappy can object. Standing — the legal right to bring the challenge — generally belongs to people with a financial stake in the outcome: those who would inherit under the intestacy statute if the will fails, and beneficiaries under a prior will who would take more if this one is thrown out. A disinherited child typically has standing. A disappointed friend or distant cousin usually does not.
Standing questions cut both ways. If you are considering a contest, the first analysis is whether you can bring one and what you would actually gain if you won. If you are defending a will, knocking out an objectant's standing can end the case early, before expensive discovery begins.
Problem Executors and Trustees: Fiduciary Disputes
Executors and trustees are fiduciaries. The law requires them to act with loyalty, prudence, and transparency — for the beneficiaries, never for themselves. When they fall short, beneficiaries have real remedies in Surrogate's Court:
- Compelling an accounting. Forcing the fiduciary to file a sworn, detailed report of every asset received, every expense paid, and every distribution made.
- Objecting to the accounting. Challenging specific transactions — unexplained withdrawals, insider sales, inflated fees, investments that ignored the beneficiaries' interests.
- Surcharge. A money judgment holding the fiduciary personally liable for losses caused by their misconduct.
- Removal. Replacing a fiduciary whose conflicts, hostility, or mismanagement endanger the estate or trust.
Akiva Shapiro brings these proceedings for beneficiaries — and defends conscientious executors and trustees against accusations that are sometimes driven more by family resentment than by the numbers.
Kinship, the Right of Election, and Other Estate Disputes
Surrogate's Court disputes run wider than will contests and fiduciary fights:
- Kinship proceedings. When someone dies without a will and without close family, more distant relatives must prove their family connection with documentary evidence before they can inherit. These genealogy-driven cases demand meticulous proof.
- Spousal right of election. New York law guarantees a surviving spouse a minimum share of the estate, no matter what the will says. Enforcing that right — or contesting whether a claimant truly qualifies as a surviving spouse — is its own species of litigation.
- Contested accountings. Full trials over what a fiduciary did with estate or trust property, sometimes reviewing years of transactions line by line.
- Discovery and turnover proceedings. Recovering property that was moved out of the estate before or after death — the emptied bank account, the deed signed weeks before the funeral.
Defending Estates, Executors, and Trustees
Every claim has a defense side, and this practice works both. Executors and trustees facing objections need counsel who can reconstruct records, justify decisions, and push back against beneficiaries whose real complaint is the will itself. Estates named in claims — by alleged creditors, by omitted family members, by people who were suing the decedent — need those claims tested rather than paid reflexively.
The governing document is where the defense starts. Akiva Shapiro examines the will or trust in painstaking detail, along with the case law around it, because these instruments often carry rights and protections that are not evident from the plain language — and ambiguities that read one way to a family member can read very differently to a court.
How These Cases Move — and How They End
Most estate disputes follow a recognizable arc in Surrogate's Court: initial filings, document exchange and depositions, court conferences, and — for the minority that do not settle — a trial before the Surrogate. The process is deliberate, and that is often useful: each stage hardens the facts and builds pressure toward resolution.
On Long Island, these cases are heard close to home. Nassau County and Suffolk County each have their own Surrogate's Court, each with local practices of its own, and estate disputes for most Long Island families end up in one of the two.
Settlement deserves genuine respect in this field. A negotiated resolution is usually faster and less expensive than trial, and it is the only outcome with a real chance of leaving family relationships intact. Akiva Shapiro takes the time to know you, your family, and its dynamics, advises you honestly on the strength of your position, and pursues the result you choose — a settlement reached from strength, or a case pressed in court relentlessly, to the fullest extent of the law.
Key Takeaways
- Wills are contested on defined grounds: undue influence, incapacity, improper execution, and fraud.
- Only people with a concrete financial stake — standing — can bring a will contest.
- Beneficiaries can compel accountings and seek surcharge or removal of a bad fiduciary.
- A surviving spouse has a guaranteed minimum share that no will can erase.
- Most estate disputes settle — and the best settlements come from trial-ready preparation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can contest a will in New York?
Generally, only someone with a financial stake in defeating the will: a person who would inherit under New York's intestacy rules if there were no will, or a beneficiary of an earlier will who would receive more if the current one fails. Being hurt or surprised by the will is not enough by itself — the law requires that concrete economic interest, called standing.
What does it take to prove undue influence?
More than opportunity or a suspicious result. Courts look for a person in a position of power or trust, the will-maker's vulnerability, active involvement in creating the will, secrecy, isolation from other family, and a disposition that breaks sharply from long-held intentions. Direct evidence is rare, so these cases are built from circumstances, records, and testimony assembled piece by piece.
The executor will not tell us anything. What can we do?
Beneficiaries are entitled to information, and Surrogate's Court can order it. The core remedy is compelling an accounting — a sworn, itemized report of everything the executor received, spent, and distributed. Once it is filed, you can object to specific transactions, examine the executor under oath, and seek surcharge or removal if the numbers reveal misconduct. Silence from a fiduciary is usually the beginning of a case, not the end.
Do estate disputes always end up at trial?
No — most settle. Negotiated resolutions are typically faster, far less expensive, and easier on family relationships, and the court system encourages them. The strongest settlements come from preparing as if for trial, because a well-built case changes the other side's math. When the other parties will not be reasonable, being fully prepared means the case can simply proceed to be heard.
Can a spouse really be cut out of a will in New York?
Not effectively. New York gives a surviving spouse a right of election — a legally guaranteed minimum share of the estate that overrides the will's terms. A spouse who was left out, or left too little, can file to claim that share within set time limits. Disputes tend to center on whether the claimant truly is a surviving spouse, whether the right was waived in a marital agreement, and which assets count toward the share.
This page is attorney advertising and provides general information about New York law; it is not legal advice for your specific situation and does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your circumstances, speak with a licensed New York attorney.