In the newspapers, more and more estate disputes are being reported on these days. I suspect over the next decade the number of estate litigation cases will continue increasing.
Starting an estate contest isn't terribly easy in most jurisdictions. There are generally several formalities that must be met in order to simply get the matter up and running.
The starting point is filing the necessary documents with the Court that lays basis for the estate litigation claim. This starting document sets out who the parties are. Each jurisdiction has different requirements as to who must be named. Therefore, if you're starting an estate litigation matter, you need to be sure you know who all must be named in the lawsuit.
For example, BC has specific requirements for who must be named parties in an estate litigation matter.
However, the starting document is more than setting out just the names of the parties. It also sets out the basis for the estate dispute ... in other words, the grounds for seeking that an estate be distributed differently than set out in the will or by law (in the case of intestacy).
Fortunately many lawyers throughout the world write some pretty good stuff about estate litigation on their websites (you gotta love the internet). If you're in BC, you can check out the following BC Estate Litigation Lawyer Website at bcestatelitigationlawyer.com.
If you're not in BC, simply search in Google and you'll find some decent estate litigation blogs authored by lawyers.
