Navigating Sensitive Legal Battles
Sometimes there’s a flaw in a document. Sometimes an heir has good reason to be unhappy. Sometimes a member of the immediate family has been left out – by accident or design. Sometimes there’s a new will or codicil that was signed under dubious circumstances. Sometimes the assets of a trust have inexplicably vanished.
Lawsuits against wills, trusts, estates, trustees, executors, and or administrators can be filed at any time, for almost countless reasons. From challenging the legitimacy of a will to the final disbursements from a decades-old trust, some issues arise that may only be resolved in a courtroom.
Every estate and trust lawsuit shares several characteristics – they are stressful, emotionally charged, and complex.
Stress, complexity, and emotions are an incendiary combination.
The attorneys at Hopkins Centrich Law have the experience, knowledge, and temperament to successfully guide clients through what could otherwise be a traumatic experience in the hands of less experienced, knowledgeable, and skillful attorneys.
About Hopkins Centrich
Hopkins Centrich PLLC provides cutting-edge, high-quality, creative legal solutions for business and business owners in Texas.
Our attorneys and staff have decades of experience in virtually every aspect of business law in The Woodlands and Texas. We have designed and incorporated businesses, managed their every legal concern, engaged in litigation on their behalf, aided with mergers and acquisitions, managed mergers, acquisitions, and sales.
Hopkins Centrich knows Texas business law. We are uniquely positioned to help business owners from startup to merger or sale or transfer to family members.
When we work with a client, our sole focus is on them. We take advantage of everything technology has to offer to optimize how we work. That gives us more time to spend with you, more time to understand the issues, and more time to negotiate and prepare for trial.
We get that no one wants to contact a law firm unless they feel they absolutely have to. When they do, it almost always means that ‘things have reached a head.’
The attorneys and staff of Hopkins Centrich understand business. We understand business owners. We will make any legal process understandable; you will know what is happening with your case every step of the way, and you will never have to track us down for answers.
Will Contests
A well-drawn will clearly lays out the testator’s intentions and does exactly what it is designed for: honor the maker’s last wishes.
Issues arise when a clause or provision is ambiguous; heirs have been inexplicably omitted; and/or the circumstances and timing of the execution of the will seem suspect. Wills may be contested if:
Someone ‘unduly influenced’ the testator by deception, fraud, or, more commonly, coercion.
A ‘last minute’ codicil was added to the will even though the testator lacked the capacity to understand.
Someone changed their will under questionable circumstances and/or with no warning.
Estate Disputes
Executors are named by a will. Administrators are appointed by a court when there is no will. Executors and administrators represent the estate and are bound by the same fiduciary duties to act in its best interest.
They are expected to identify the estate’s assets and debts; sell what needs to be sold; manage what needs to be managed; find every beneficiary; obtain valuations; keep meticulous records; and, eventually, disburse the assets to the beneficiaries as the deceased intended. Disagreements almost inevitably are bound to happen; they are usually worked out. Some disputes, however, are serious and cannot be resolved by the parties. Then the only choice is litigation.
While by no means exhaustive, here are a few of the estate litigation issues we have been involved in:
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Contested Guardianship
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Assets that were sold when they should not have been
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Improper valuations
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Misreading/interpreting a will clause
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Failure to insure a property
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Paying out assets to the wrong party(s)
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Assets unaccounted for
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Self-dealing by the executor
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Distribution of assets
Trusts Disputes
Trustees perform numerous duties and are accountable to various parties, including the IRS. They are held to the highest standards of loyalty and honesty towards the trust and its beneficiaries. However, some trustees fail to meet these standards. Additionally, certain beneficiaries may believe they are entitled to more than they are receiving, express dissatisfaction with a trustee's investment or business decisions, or feel discontent due to a lack of control.
Trust disputes regularly arise when the parties are intractably entrenched and/or the accusations are serious. Litigation may be inevitable. A few of the trust disputes we have handled:
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Breach of fiduciary duty
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Conflicts over taxable and non-taxable gifts
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Accountings
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Modifying and terminating trusts
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Issues regarding closely held business interests
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Contested claims
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Proceedings to recover assets
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Charitable pledge disputes and modifications of charitable trusts
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Taxes & Appeals
How We Work
Hopkins Centrich is a team with a deep bench. All our attorneys have extensive litigation experience which they fully use when called for.
Hopkins Centrich’s attorneys all have ‘big firm’ backgrounds. They formed our firm with the goal of keeping the best of those firms while employing far more personal experience for our clients.
We do this by using technology to its fullest. We will make use of every cutting edge legal and business technology and methodologies to ensure that we will continue to deliver the highest quality legal services to our clients while allowing us to respond promptly and efficiently to client needs, exceed project requirements, operate effortlessly with narrow timeframes, and develop innovative and flexible legal solutions at competitive fees.
We are creative. We are agile. We quickly adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, including changes in the law.
Our vision statement may sum it up best. We will deliver highly skilled, ethical, and aggressive legal representation to every client by:
Responding promptly to our clients’ needs;
Anticipating business and legal trends that may affect our clients;
Managing our clients’ matters in an efficient, caring, and proactive manner;
Communicating regularly and clearly with our clients