The dispute didn’t start the day your parent died. It started years earlier.
Probate court is where the dispute surfaces — but the conditions that produced it were laid down long before. A will written without family conversation. A beneficiary designation that contradicts the will. A late-life remarriage that no one talked about openly. A sibling who feels they were promised something nobody else heard. By the time the petition is filed, the family conflict has been brewing for a decade.
This post is the version of the conversation you can have now, while everyone is still alive. What probate court actually is. How the process works. Why inheritance disputes happen, what gets contested, and what doesn’t. The cost of fighting through probate. And what families can do — both before and during — to keep a difficult moment from becoming a destructive one.
If you haven’t read it, the foundational read: Estate Planning Checklist for Adult Children.
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