Ramirez v. Galvan, No. 03-17-00101-CV, 2018 WL 454733 (Tex. App.—Austin Jan. 10, 2018, no pet.).
The trial court refused to admit the testatrix’s
will to probate as a muniment of title because the proponent (her
surviving husband) filed it more than four years after her death. The
appellate court reversed.
The court explained that a will may be admitted to
probate after the four year period if the proponent is “not in default.”
Estates Code § 256.003(a). In this case, the proponent did not think it
was necessary to probate the will. It was only when he later wanted to
sell the marital home that he realized that probate was needed to
establish the chain of title. The court reviewed the case law and
concluded that “Texas law is quite liberal in permitting a will to
offered as a muniment of title after the four-year limitation period has
expired.” The court even found several cases in which the court held
that the proponent’s belief that probate was not needed was an adequate
excuse.
Although the court did not think a not-in-default
status was achieved as a matter of law, the court reviewed the
proponent’s actions to determine that he “did not offer the will for
probate, not through any lack of diligence, but because he did not
realize any further act was necessary.” Thus, the court held that the
trial court’s finding of default was “so against the great weight and
preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust.”
Moral: As the court stated, Texas courts
are willing to admit a will to probate after the four year period on a
relatively weak showing of lack of default.