Time Limit on Admitting Will to Probate Defeated Only if Will Knowingly Withheld

By statute, Kansas requires a will to be filed for probate within six months of the testator’s death.  However, state law imposes on a person who knowingly withholds a will from submission for probate the attorney’s fees, costs, and damages sustained by innocent beneficiaries and then states that “such will” may be admitted to probate “as to any innocent beneficiary” if the probate petition is filed within 90 days after the beneficiary had knowledge of and access to the will.

In Estate of Strader, 339 P.3d 769 (Kan. 2014), the Kansas Supreme Court held that the exception applies only to a will knowingly withheld and therefore reversed the admission to probate of a will which could not be found at testator’s death and was then discovered four and one-half years after the testator’s death in the files of the successor firm to the firm that had drafted the will.

Special thanks to William LaPiana (Professor of Law, New York Law School) for bringing this case to my attention.