What Does “Contesting a Will” Mean?
Contesting a will means asking a court to decide whether a will is valid. It is not just telling the court you think the will is unfair. It is a formal lawsuit where you claim that something about the will or the way it was signed violates Tennessee law.
Only certain people are allowed to bring this kind of case. You must either be someone who would inherit if there were no will, or someone who was named in an earlier will but left out or reduced in the new one.
People usually contest wills for a few main reasons. Common grounds include undue influence, which means serious pressure or manipulation, problems with mental capacity, fraud, or mistakes in how the will was signed and witnessed.
How Much Time Do You Have to Contest a Will in Tennessee?
In Tennessee, a will contest must generally be filed within two years after the will is admitted to probate. If you wait longer than the allowed time to file a contest, the court will usually dismiss your case, even if you believe you have strong evidence.
It is also important to know that the two year period is a maximum, not a target. A contest filed late in the process can be much harder because the estate administration may already be far along. Property may have been sold, accounts may have been paid out, and records or witnesses may be harder to find. For that reason, anyone who is worried about a will should view the legal deadline as the outer limit and should speak with a lawyer as early as possible.
The two year period is the general rule for most Tennessee estates. There is one more piece you need to understand, though: how the will was probated, in common form or solemn form, can change whether you actually have that much time.
How Common Form and Solemn Form Probate Affect Your Time to Contest
In Tennessee, a will can be admitted to probate in common form or solemn form, and that choice changes how much time you have to challenge it.
Common form probate: where the two year rule applies
Most wills in Tennessee are probated in common form. In a common form probate, the clerk admits the will without a formal courtroom hearing for all heirs and beneficiaries, and the executor can usually be appointed the same day the petition is filed. Because there is no advance notice requirement at this stage, Tennessee law allows a later will contest.
In most of these cases, the two year deadline described above runs from the date the will is first admitted to probate in common form.
Solemn form probate: much less room to contest later
Solemn form probate is more formal. The court sets a hearing, gives notice to interested parties, and hears any objections before deciding whether to admit the will. When the court admits a will to probate in solemn form after proper notice and hearing, that judgment is generally final on the question of whether the document is a valid will.
In practical terms, if you receive notice of a solemn form hearing and do not raise your objections in time, you may not be able to file a later will contest at all, even though the usual two year period has not passed.
Because of this, anyone who receives notice of a probate hearing in Tennessee should not assume the standard two year rule will protect them. It is important to find out quickly whether the estate is being handled in common form or solemn form and to talk with a probate litigation attorney before the court enters a final order.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline?
If you do not file a will contest before the statute of limitations expires, the court will almost always treat the will as final. At that point, you can no longer ask the court to decide whether the will itself is valid.
The estate will continue to be handled under that will, and the people named in it will keep their inheritances. Even if you later uncover information about undue influence, lack of capacity, or fraud, those facts usually cannot be used to undo the will once the time limit has passed.
Julia Mynhier 
John Crow 
Thomas Steelman 
