What New York law says about no contest clauses

The possibility of a nasty court battle over a last will and testament motivates some people to stick a “no contest” clause into their wills. If anyone is going to step forward to contest the will, the no contest clause will specify that the contesting individual will be cut out of the will’s provisions. While this seems like a good way to dissuade beneficiaries from going to court over a will, New York law might not uphold such clauses in all cases. 

No contest clauses might seem unfair at first glance since they present an all or nothing proposition, and if a person finds fault with the will, that person could lose out completely on the benefits of the will by contesting it. FindLaw states that for these reasons, many states will not enforce such clauses and will allow people with standing to contest wills if valid reasons exist to do so.

New York law, however, is quite specific, stating that no contest clauses are valid in the state. A testor does not need to provide a beneficiary with any alternative benefits if the beneficiary contests the will. Also, it does not matter if a beneficiary has a probable cause to contest the will. The no contest clause can still take effect and disinherit the person for contesting. However, this is not true for all cases.

State law does provide specific exceptions that bar a person from being disinherited. For instance, the contesting individual may only be claiming that the will is not being offered in the correct jurisdiction and is not challenging the provisions of the will. A challenger may also not be competent under the law to make the challenge in the first place and thus cannot be held responsible. State law provides this exception to infants as well.

People may also suspect that there is something wrong with the will itself, perhaps believing that the will is not even legitimate. State law permits residents to challenge wills if they are forgeries. A will might also have been superseded by a later will but the earlier will was wrongly put into effect, which can also form the basis for a legitimate challenge.

Additionally, a no contest clause cannot be used to coerce people to not engage in legitimate probate actions. A beneficiary may have documents or information that are relevant to a probate proceeding but the testor of the will might not want to come to light. Regardless of the testor’s wishes, a person cannot be disinherited for bringing these documents forward. A person also cannot be disinherited for not participating in a petition to put a document through probate as a last will.