Q: Undue influence and a fake will:

A: You can hire a Michigan will contest attorney to help you challenge the will. Understand, however, that you will need to produce evidence of forgery or undue influence. Your mere belief will not carry the day. A will contest attorney can explain this to you in more detail.

A: If the decedent is your uncle, my first question is how are you what is legally called an "interested person" entitled to notice of these proceedings. Unless you are an interested person - mostly either an heir or devisee (someone named in the will as a beneficiary) - you have no legal standing to challenge anything.

If you or someone challenges the will successfully, the court may throw out the will. What happens then? Well, the court then will treat the matter as if your uncle died without a will. His property will be distributed under Michigan's intestacy statutes: if he was married, most everything would go to the spouse; if not married, then everything would be split between his children equally. If not married, and no children, then it would go to his parents if they are alive.

And so if you are getting notice, that would suggest to me that you are somehow named in the will, and may stand to get something when you otherwise would not under intestacy. And if you are writing this question on behalf of your parent, who would be your uncle's sibling, the same thing applies: they may be getting something through the will that they otherwise would not. Granted, that "something" may not be what you thought or were promised. But be careful what you wish for....

How to challenge the will? You carry the burden of persuasion on the court that the will is invalid or that there has been undue influence. The witnesses to the will signing may be called into court, and if they testify that they seen or knew your uncle to have signed it, you would somehow need to convince the judge that one or both witnesses are lying. Or, you may need to employ a handwriting expert. For undue influence, as a previous attorney mentioned, is going to be hard, especially if you are making this argument as a devisee. All of this costs time and money to litigate, so you really need to consider the real money value of what you could receive. It may be worth it if your uncle died a millionaire and you stand to gain a couple hundred thousand; it may not be worth it - even if you're right - if we're talking a couple hundred bucks, which would easily be consumed by attorney fees to litigate this.