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New Hampshire Will Contests
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New Hampshire Will Contests

How to contest a New Hampshire will: the grounds RSA 552:7 names, who counts as an interested party, and the six-month re-examination window.

By Settled Editorial

A New Hampshire will contest starts with a motion asking the Circuit Court, Probate Division to re-examine a will it has already allowed. RSA 552:7 gives any interested party six months from that probate to ask for re-examination and proof in solemn form. Execution, testamentary capacity, fraud, duress and undue influence all go to the probate judge.

Six months is short, and it runs from the date the court allowed the will. Not from the death, and not from the day anyone found out about it. A licensed New Hampshire attorney is where a specific set of facts belongs, because a losing challenge can cost a beneficiary their gift under RSA 551:22.

This page owns grounds and procedure. New Hampshire will requirements covers what makes a will valid in the first place, and the New Hampshire probate guide covers the wider case a contest sits inside.

Common Form and Solemn Form Decide Whether You Have a Route

New Hampshire proves wills two ways, and the difference decides whether you have a contest route at all.

Most wills go through in common form. RSA 552:6 says that where the probate of a will is not contested, the judge may allow and approve it on the testimony of one subscribing witness, even though the other witnesses are living and within process of the court. The judge may also allow it on the assent of the surviving spouse, the legatees, the devisees and the heirs at law, with no witness appearing at all. Where an unnamed charitable interest exists, the director of charitable trusts assents too. That is a paperwork proceeding with no notice and no hearing.

Solemn form is the version with notice, witnesses and a hearing. RSA 552:7 reads:

"Any party interested may have the probate of a will which has been proved without notice re-examined, and the will proved in solemn form before the court of probate at any time within 6 months of such probate. Any issue related to the execution of a will, testamentary capacity, or fraud, duress, or undue influence shall be tried to the court of probate, and any party interested may request the same within 6 months of such probate."

Read the first clause closely. The re-examination right attaches to a will "which has been proved without notice", meaning a will allowed in common form. That is the ordinary situation, since common form is how nearly every uncontested New Hampshire will is allowed.

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The Six-Month Clock, and the One Group That Gets Longer

Both sentences of RSA 552:7 carry the same period: six months of such probate. Two things follow.

  • The trigger is the allowance of the will, the date the judge approved it as the decedent's last will. The form the court publishes asks for that exact date, so pull it off the docket rather than estimating.
  • Learning about the will late does not move the clock. Nothing in RSA 552:7 keys the period to notice or to discovery.

Notice usually arrives well inside the window, which is why the deadline is workable. RSA 552:15 requires the executor to notify every legatee named in the will, the surviving spouse and the known heirs at law within 60 days after appointment, and to certify to the judge within 90 days how and to whom that notice went. RSA 552:5-a is what makes that possible, since the petition for appointment has to carry the names, relationships and known addresses of the surviving spouse and the heirs at law.

One group gets a longer runway. RSA 552:9 says a minor, a person the statute calls insane, or a person out of the United States, or their legal representatives, may have the probate of a will proved without notice re-examined at any time within one year after the removal of the disability. The statutory wording is archaic and the section is still live. A child who was 14 when a grandparent's will was allowed does not lose the right at 14 and a half.

Deadlines run in parallel across a New Hampshire estate, and the six-month contest window is only one of them. The New Hampshire probate deadlines guide lays the rest of them out side by side.

Who Counts as an Interested Party

RSA 552:7 gives the right to "any party interested". The statute does not define the phrase, and the court's own form asks the filer to state a "Relationship to deceased" along with the reason the filer has an interest.

The people who normally qualify share one trait. They stand to receive more if the will falls than they receive if it stands.

  • Heirs at law. Whoever would inherit under New Hampshire intestate succession if no valid will existed.
  • Beneficiaries of an earlier will. If the challenged will is set aside and an earlier one survives, the earlier document controls.
  • Beneficiaries under the challenged will whose share turns on which version is genuine, or on whether a later codicil holds.
  • The director of charitable trusts, where a charitable interest is at stake. RSA 552:6 names that officer in the assent route, and RSA 551:22, III(e) protects an action the attorney general brings over a charitable interest.

A friend, a caregiver who expected to be named, or a relative who dislikes the split has no standing on those facts alone. Disappointment is not an interest.

There is a separate, narrower path worth knowing. RSA 552:10 covers the will that gets filed with the court and then goes nowhere. Where nobody presents it for probate, the judge may, on the application of the widow or an heir and after due notice, approve and allow it or disallow it, and that decree carries the same force as one made on the executor's own application.

The Grounds RSA 552:7 Names

The second sentence of RSA 552:7 lists the issues the probate court tries. That list is the working set of grounds.

Improper execution

New Hampshire sets four elements at RSA 551:2, I. The maker has to qualify under RSA 551:1, the will has to be in writing, the maker has to sign it or direct someone to sign in the maker's presence, and 2 or more credible witnesses have to attest to that signature at the maker's request and in the maker's presence. Paragraph II adds that no seal is required and that those rules govern every will executed on or after January 1, 1993.

The execution ground bites harder here than in most states, because New Hampshire recognizes no holographic will. RSA 551 creates none, and RSA 551:2 writes no exception to the two-witness rule. A page in the decedent's handwriting with no witnesses does not become a will because the handwriting is genuine.

Check one thing before building on that. RSA 551:5, I accepts a will made out of this state and valid according to the laws of the state or country where it was executed, and gives it the same effect as one executed under New Hampshire law. A handwritten will signed in a state whose law accepts holographs can be proved in a New Hampshire probate division.

Lack of testamentary capacity

RSA 551:1 sets the standard in a single sentence: every person of the age of eighteen years and married persons under that age, of sane mind, may dispose of their property by their last will in writing. Capacity is measured at the moment of signing, which is why medical records, the drafting lawyer's file and the witnesses' memories matter more than a diagnosis that arrived later.

The self-proving affidavit at RSA 551:2-a is worth pulling too. Its sworn wording has the witnesses attest that the maker was "of sane mind and under no constraint or undue influence", so a signed affidavit puts sworn statements on the record from the two people who watched the signing.

Undue influence, fraud and duress

RSA 552:7 names all three and defines none of them. Each one attacks the will as an expression of somebody else's intent rather than the maker's. The evidence that carries these claims tends to be circumstantial: who arranged the drafting appointment, who drove the maker there, who sat in the room, who held the power of attorney, who gained, and how far the new document departs from every earlier version.

Where the real complaint is that somebody moved money before the death, New Hampshire has a separate track with its own burden rule. RSA 564-E:116, titled Judicial Relief, presumes a gift made under a power of attorney lawful only where that document carries the RSA 564-E:105 disclosure statement, the RSA 564-E:113 agent's acknowledgment, and express gift authority. Without all three, subsection (g)(3) makes the agent prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the gift was authorized and was not the result of undue influence, fraud, or misrepresentation. That is a claim against the agent rather than a challenge to the will.

What is not a ground

  • An unfair split. A will that leaves one child everything and another child nothing is unusual, not invalid.
  • Deliberate disinheritance. RSA 551:10, III says the after-born child protections do not apply where it appears from the will that the omission was intentional.
  • A will you never saw. Nothing requires a maker to show anyone the document.

Three Remedies That Look Like Contests and Are Not

Filing the wrong paper wastes the six months. Each of these attacks a piece of the estate without asking the court to void the will.

A witness who inherits loses the gift, not the will. RSA 551:3 voids any beneficial devise or legacy to a subscribing witness, or to the wife or husband of that witness, unless there are 2 other subscribing witnesses. The witness stays competent and the rest of the will stands.

An omitted after-born or after-adopted child claims a share. RSA 551:10 gives that child a defined portion of the estate, computed one way where the maker had no living child at execution and another way where the maker did. That is a distribution claim inside the estate.

A surviving spouse waives the will instead of attacking it. RSA 560:10 lets a surviving spouse waive the homestead right and the will's provisions in their favor and take a statutory portion. RSA 560:14 requires the waiver in writing, filed in the probate office within six months after the appointment of an executor or administrator, "and not afterwards", unless the judge allows more time for good cause. The New Hampshire surviving spouse rights guide walks the tiers.

Filing the Motion: the Form, the Fee, the Court

New Hampshire publishes one statewide form for this. It is the Motion to Re-examine Probate Will, numbered NHJB-2243-P on paper and NHJB-2243-Pe for e-filing, and the Judicial Branch describes it as the form used to ask the court to re-examine the probate of a will already accepted, when there may be a question about the validity of the will.

The form is short and it asks five things.

  1. The filer's name, relationship to the deceased, mailing address and telephone number.
  2. The executor's name, address and telephone number.
  3. The date the will was proved and allowed in common form and without notice.
  4. Which route the filer selects. One box asks for examination of the witnesses to the will only. The other asks for re-examination based on allegations set forth in an attached statement, which is where a capacity, fraud, duress or undue influence claim goes.
  5. A certificate that copies went to every party who has filed an appearance and to the other interested parties, by hand delivery, US Mail or email by prior agreement.

The form is signed in front of a notary public or a justice of the peace, and it carries an acknowledgment block that the notarial officer completes.

The fee is $175.00. The Circuit Court filing fee schedule dated 07/01/2025 lists "Motion to Re-Examine Will" at that amount, and Probate Division Rule 169 prices the same motion at (I)(n) plus a companion line the published schedule leaves out, (I)(m) "Motion Prove Will in Common and/or Solemn Form (administration required)", also $175.00. That schedule adds a line for filers who cannot cover the fee: "If you cannot afford a fee, you may ask the court to pay less or file for free", by written or electronic request to the court.

The motion goes to the Probate Division that holds the estate. New Hampshire folded its county probate courts into one statewide Circuit Court in 2011, and RSA 490-F:4 makes each county a judicial district for the probate division, so each of the ten counties has exactly one. Each court goes by circuit number and city, such as 9th Circuit - Probate Division - Nashua, and the filing office is the circuit clerk. The New Hampshire probate court directory has all ten.

One wrinkle on the paperwork. The instruction sheet the court publishes alongside NHJB-2243-P dates from 2008 and still tells filers to enter a "county probate court" name. The form itself, revised in 2013, correctly asks the court to prove the will in solemn form "before the Probate Division". The current court name is the one that applies.

What Happens After You File

RSA 552:8 sets the shape of the proceeding in two sentences. The petition goes to the judge, and notice of it goes to the executor personally if that is practicable, and is also published. Then: "If, upon hearing and re-examination, the probate shall not be confirmed, the will and probate shall be void."

Two other sections shape the hearing.

  • The court protects absent parties first. RSA 552:11 blocks any decree allowing or disallowing a will in solemn form until guardians have been appointed for minors and others who cannot care for their own estates, and until agents have been appointed for interested persons who live out of state or are unknown.
  • A missing witness does not end the case. RSA 552:12 lets a will be proved and allowed on other satisfactory evidence where the attesting witnesses have become incompetent, or where the court determines their testimony is unavailable.

There is no jury. RSA 552:7 sends execution, capacity, fraud, duress and undue influence to the court of probate, so a Circuit Court judge hears the evidence and decides.

Meanwhile the estate keeps moving. The administrator still has to inventory assets, handle claims and account to the court, and the New Hampshire executor duties guide covers those duties during a dispute.

Appealing a Probate Division Decision

RSA 567-A:1 gives the right: a person aggrieved by a decree, order, appointment, grant or denial of a judge of probate which may conclude that person's interest may appeal to the supreme court on questions of law, "in accordance with rules of the supreme court".

That last phrase carries real weight, because RSA 567-A itself contains no deadline. The two sections that used to carry appeal periods, 567-A:2 and 567-A:3, were both repealed in 1983. The period comes from Supreme Court Rule 7, which requires the notice of appeal within 30 days from the date on the clerk's written notice of the decision on the merits. Supreme Court Rule 3 treats an appeal from a final decision on the merits issued by a circuit court as a mandatory appeal, which the supreme court accepts for review on the merits.

Three more sections govern what happens next.

  • Findings are requested before the judge rules. RSA 567-A:4 requires the judge to report the material facts found and the rulings of law on request of a party entitled to appeal, made before the decision is entered, and requires requests for findings and written memoranda at the close of the evidence. The same section then makes the judge's findings of fact final "unless they are so plainly erroneous that such findings could not be reasonably made". Without that request, an appeal proceeds on a thin record.
  • The appeal freezes the decree. RSA 567-A:7 stays all proceedings under the decision appealed from, and lets the probate judge appoint a special administrator under RSA 553:20 where the estate needs one in the meantime.
  • The supreme court has room to move. RSA 567-A:8 lets it reverse or affirm in whole or in part and enter the decree the probate court should have entered, remand for further proceedings, or make any other order law and justice require.

No-Contest Clauses Bite Harder in New Hampshire

Many states forgive a beneficiary who challenges a will with probable cause. New Hampshire wrote the opposite rule.

RSA 551:22, II says a no-contest provision "shall be enforceable according to the express terms of the no-contest provision without regard to the presence or absence of probable cause for, or the beneficiary's good or bad faith in, taking the action that would justify the complete or partial forfeiture of the beneficiary's interest in the will under the terms of the no-contest provision."

Paragraph I defines the clause broadly. It reaches an action contesting the admission or validity of the will, an action to set aside or vary its terms, a challenge to the executor's performance of duties, and any other act or proceeding to frustrate or defeat the testator's intent.

The section keeps four limits.

  • A clause cannot save an invalid will. RSA 551:22, II makes the provision unenforceable to the extent the will is invalid because of fraud, duress, undue influence, lack of testamentary capacity, or any other reason. Where a contest succeeds, the forfeiture falls with the document.
  • A real fiduciary breach defeats it. Where the action solely challenges the executor's or other fiduciary's acts, the clause is unenforceable to the extent that fiduciary has committed a breach of fiduciary duties or breach of trust.
  • Paragraph III exempts whole categories. A settlement agreement among the beneficiaries and other interested persons, an action asking whether a proposed filing even counts as a contest, an action by a beneficiary to construe or interpret the will, and an action by the attorney general over a charitable interest all sit outside the forfeiture.
  • The executor can hold the distribution while the question is open. Paragraphs VI through VIII let an executor suspend distributions to a beneficiary whose action might have triggered forfeiture, and shield a good-faith executor who does.

The clause itself is where that question starts. Weighing the gift a clause would forfeit against what a successful challenge would produce is arithmetic that settles a lot of New Hampshire contests before anyone reaches the merits.

If the Money Sits in a Trust, the Clock Is Different

Plenty of New Hampshire estates hold their real value in a revocable trust, with a short pour-over will. Attacking that trust runs on its own timetable.

RSA 564-B:6-604 routes a revocable trust contest to RSA 564-B:4-406. Subsection (a) voids a trust to the extent it was not validly created under the chapter, or its creation was induced by fraud, duress, or undue influence, which mirrors the will grounds. Subsection (b) then sets the window at the earlier of two periods:

  • 3 years after the settlor's death, for a trust that was revocable when the settlor died; or
  • 180 days after the trustee sends the person a copy of the trust instrument plus a notice giving the trust's existence, the trustee's name, address and telephone number, and the time allowed to bring a contest.

Subsection (c) says the trustee may send that 180-day notice but has no duty to do so, and faces no liability for skipping it. So a trustee who wants finality sends it, and a beneficiary who receives one is on a much shorter clock than three years. The court prices the filing separately from a will contest: Rule 169(I)(p) sets "Petition to Determine Validity of Trust" at $175.00.

Two more rules matter to anyone weighing a trust challenge. Subsection (e) lets a trustee distribute trust property before the contest period expires, with liability attaching only where the trustee knows of a pending contest or a potential contestant gave notice and filed within 60 days. Subsection (f) makes a beneficiary of a trust later found invalid liable to return any distribution received. The New Hampshire revocable living trust guide covers how these trusts are built and funded.

The Route That Prevents the Fight Entirely

New Hampshire lets a living person get their own will declared valid, and almost nobody uses it. RSA 552:18, added by 2014, 195:4, eff. July 1, 2014, lets an individual commence a judicial proceeding to determine the validity of their own will. The petitioner has to be domiciled in New Hampshire or own real property here, and has to file personally, since a guardian, conservator or attorney-in-fact may not start it for them.

The proceeding notifies the spouse, whoever would be heirs on the filing date, the legatees and devisees, the nominated executors and, where a charity takes, the director of charitable trusts. The will is proved in solemn form with the same burden of proof and presumptions. After the death, a will carrying that declaration has full legal effect and, on request, is admitted to probate and conclusively deemed proved, apart from any later modification or revocation. The 07/01/2025 fee schedule prices it as "Petition to Prove Validity of Will during life of Testator" at $205.00, and the Judicial Branch publishes the e-file form "Petition to Prove Validity of Will", NHJB-2921-Pe.

Where a family expects a fight and the maker is well enough to testify, this moves the argument forward while the best witness is still alive.

What Happens If the Will Falls

RSA 552:8 gives the answer in seven words: the will and probate shall be void. From there the estate looks for the next valid instrument.

  • An earlier will, if one exists and was properly executed, becomes the document to prove.
  • No earlier will, and the estate passes by intestacy. RSA 561:1 sets the shares, and the New Hampshire intestate succession guide works through the tiers.

That second outcome is the one most often overlooked. A contest that succeeds hands the estate to the intestacy statute, and the intestacy statute does not always pay a challenger more than the will did.

What This Means for a New Hampshire Will Contest

A New Hampshire contest turns on a short set of questions, and the sections above answer each one.

  • The date the will was allowed. That date, which appears on the court's docket, starts the six months under RSA 552:7. The date of death and the date anyone learned of the will do not.
  • Whether the will was allowed in common form, without notice. That is the situation RSA 552:7 addresses.
  • Standing. The right runs to a party interested, which normally means someone who would take more if the will fell than if it stood.
  • Any no-contest clause in the will. RSA 551:22 enforces one without regard to probable cause or good faith.
  • The intestacy comparison. RSA 561:1 fixes what an intestate estate pays out, which is not always more than the will pays.
  • The ground, and the evidence behind it. Execution under RSA 551:2, capacity under RSA 551:1, or fraud, duress or undue influence supported by an attached statement of allegations.
  • The form, the court and the fee. NHJB-2243-P or NHJB-2243-Pe, filed with the Probate Division holding the estate, at $175.00, with copies to every party who has appeared.
  • Findings of fact and rulings of law. RSA 567-A:4 requires the request before the decision is entered, and makes the judge's findings nearly final without it.
  • The appeal window. Supreme Court Rule 7 sets 30 days from the clerk's written notice of the decision on the merits.

This page is general information about New Hampshire will contests, not legal advice about any particular estate. A contest turns on facts, medical records and testimony that no article can weigh, and the six-month window is short, so a licensed New Hampshire attorney and the Circuit Court Probate Division for the county holding the estate are the places to take a specific situation.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Information current as of August 3, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in New Hampshire can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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