Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/16/2011 - 18:50
My recently decesased father's will names two of my siblings as co-executors. One of these two will be out of the country for 6 months of the coming year.
Does his distance constitute legitimate grounds for contesting his appointment as executor?
contesting executor of will
You can follow this link for some general information about contesting an executor. As an interested party, you can petition the probate court to remove a named executor or appoint a different person as executor. However, in all cases the probate court will strive to fulfill the wishes of the deceased who, apparently, wanted both siblings to serve as co-executors. It is certainly possible for a person to spend time out of the country and still fulfill his/her obligations as executor, especially as a co-executor working with another person. The burden will be on you to convince the court that your sibling is unable to perform his/her duties. Frankly, unless there is some other compelling reason to remove the one sibling, I would let it go.