Texas Law
Getting someone to make a will may be a crime in Texas. In a 2015 case out of the Dallas Court of Appeals, a man was convicted of a crime for getting an elderly woman to make a will naming him as a beneficiary. After the woman died, he filed the will for probate. Those actions constituted a crime according to the court of appeals because they were done with criminal intent. The court stated that “If performed with the requisite criminal intent to deprive whoever would otherwise have taken (the deceased’s) property after her death, the conduct alleged in this indictment—causing (the deceased) to execute a will in his favor and then filing the will for probate—amounts to a criminal offense.” The court upheld a ten-year sentence.
Ordinary Wills
This case does not apply to someone who urges an elderly person to make a will. Everyone should be urged to make a will. In the case decided by the Dallas Court of Appeals, there was evidence that the man who was charged, who was not related to the deceased, talked her into making a will for his benefit while she was in the hospital during her last illness. The lady had a child, and her previous will named the child as her beneficiary.
