New York County Surrogate Nora Anderson recently denied a summary judgment motion on an objection based on undue influence. The proponent of the will started as decedent’s part-time health aide and became indispensable when decedent required continuous attention Decedent was accompanied by proponent on visits...
Surrogate Frank Labuda ruled that under SCPA §2110 the court had discretion to award attorney fees from estate funds to pay legal fees for service renderd by consel to the estate fiduciarybut would not allow payment of attorney fees from estate funds for future legal...
Suffolk County Surrogate John Czygier Jr. in a recent decision order the fees of Court appointed Guardian ad Litems to be paid personally by a Trustee who distributed trust funds not leaving enough money in the Trust to pay the court ordered fees...
Manhattan Surrogate Rita Mella decided to order a posthumous genetic marker test in the contested proceeding to compel the account of the estate’s administrator The court noted it must determine if ordering the test was practicable and reasonable and would impose undue hardship on decedent’s...
New York County Surrogate Rita Mella found a will signed by the decedent to be valid despite his advanced age and some visual impairments. Because execution was supervised by an attorney and there were contemporaneous affidavits of attesting witnesses reciting the facts of due execution...
Surrogate Robert Gigante from Richmond County recently held that in a situation where a house was the sole asset of an estate the sale of the real property was expressly allowed by a fiduciary to pay administrative expenses, estate taxes and debts, and the respective...
Attorney-drafter brought a construction proceeding to have the court authorize making gifts under the will to two substitute Jewish charities in the place of Graenum Berger a charitable organization named in the original Will which was no longer functioning. Bronx County Surrogate Nelida Malave-Gonzalez found...
Surrogate Margarita Lopez Torres recently ruled in a Kings County Surrogate’s Court matter that an attorney’s refusal to sign a substitution of attorney stipulation was a “futile and disturbing attempt to avoid discharge,” and his motion for a judgment constituting fees owed “woefully insufficient.” ...
Fiduciary Ordered to Repay Excess Legal Fees and Commissions with Interest New York County Surrogate Rita Mella recently issued a decision ruling that an estate fiduciary must refund any amount in excess of the legal fee allowed by the court In this contested judicial accounting proceedings. ...
A Trustee wanted to take personal distributions from a trust that she would have been allowed if not for the fact that he was also the sole trustee of the trust. Surrogate Robert Gigante in Staten Island (Richmond County) noted without appointment of a co-trustee,...