A Full-Service Law Firm

Creating Estate Plans And Helping Families Through Probate

Both thinking about your own last wishes and administering the estate of a loved one can be emotional processes, but their successful completion can also give you a sense of relief and closure. The Campbell & Madden, PLLC, has helped clients with probate and estate matters from our offices in Shalimar, for more than 32 years. Our firm offers personalized attention to your needs and goals.

We invite you to contact us to discuss how we can assist you in your specific circumstances.

Drafting Wills And Guiding You Through Probate

We handle probate and estate matters at every stage of the process. If you are looking to draft a will, power of attorney or living will, we can help you set out your choices for the personal representative (also known as executor) who will wrap up your affairs, the guardians for any minor children you may have and the distribution of your assets.

We also help personal representatives with their probate administration responsibilities, which may include notification of beneficiaries and creditors, sale of a property, distribution of assets and closure of the estate. Not all estates have to go through probate. But if the deceased person owned real estate, annuities, money market funds, special accounts or significant overall assets, probate will probably be necessary.

Your Advocate In Contested Estates

Unfortunately, there are often times when the loved ones of someone who has died cannot agree on the proper interpretation of the deceased’s last wishes. It is not unusual for a testamentary distribution to be changed during the deceased’s last few months. If this change is significantly different from that found in a previous will, particularly if the change favors a nonrelative, or if the new beneficiary is a person who has been acting as the deceased’s caregiver, this creates a very suspicious circumstance that in many cases raises a presumption against the validity of the will.

Two of the most common ways to attack the validity of a last will and testament are to determine if the testator or testatrix was competent at the time of execution or was the will a product of undue influence. If the deceased was on significant medication that affected mental capacity, that fact could be a very important fact as part of establishing a lack of testamentary capacity. The deceased’s primary physician will have an abundance of records that will indicate whether there were issues with mental capacity.

Our Firm Is Ready to Help

We represent executors, family members, beneficiaries and other interested parties in will contests and other estate litigation under Florida probate law. To discuss your probate or estate planning needs with a lawyer, email our firm or call 888-646-1535.