Contingency Fee for Inheritance Disputes

When a family member or a third-party is trying to control the estate and take away your fair share of the inheritance, you may have the right to challenge the will or the trust so that the decedent’s true intent and wishes can be honored.  With the value of real estate in Southern California having skyrocketed, we are seeing more and more instances of people committing all sorts of frauds to deprive heirs and beneficiaries of their rightful inheritance. 

In some cases, the bad actors change the trust or will just before the person dies.  As people age, they start losing their mental capacity and their ability to distinguish between people who are there to take care of them and those who are there to steal. Whereas a person spent their life minding each penny, in their old age, they might be easily defrauded to give away large amounts to people who are taking advantage of them. The prime suspects for inheritance theft are often the deceased person’s own children or family members.  Next in line are third parties, such as caregivers, neighbors, or trusted advisors. 

DCDM takes a limited number of trust/probate cases on a contingency fee.  This means that we get paid only if we succeed, i.e. when you collect your inheritance.  You are not paying any attorney-fees upfront and you are not liable for the hourly fees incurred. Clients often prefer the contingency fee option because it saves clients from having to pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation fees.  

Many types of inheritance fraud or theft cases can be right for contingency fee arrangements, such as Trust Contests (Trust Disputes), Will Contests, Will Interpretations, Beneficiary Disputes, Executor Disputes and Breaches of Fiduciary Duties.

To make sure that the contingency arrangement is fair for both DCDM and for you, we will consider contingency fee arrangements only in those cases where your share is at least $250,000.