Probate Question, Caveat to Will, Previous Will introduced?

What is the name of your state? NC

My husband and his two siblings have filed a caveat to his father's will on the grounds that the will was created by their step-mother and signed 3-4 years after he was diagnosed with alzheimer's. As I'm sure you can imagine, the will leaves everything to her and she is the executor.

Now that she's been served with the caveat, her attorney is telling ours that "she says she has another will that says the same thing." Our atty. is just saying lets wait and see what it says, and my husband forgot to ask this question so I wanted to pose it here for other opinions.

If someone probates one will and when that will is contested they produce a previous will, do the courts only look at the will that was submitted to probate or can this other will be introduced?

Do they just keep going back to the previous will, then the previous will, then the previous will? When would it be deemed that he died intestate?

Thanks!

Wills, trusts and probate are extremely state specific and I do not know the law in NC, but generally a will is revoked by a subsequent will only if the subsequent will is valid and has the proper language to revoke the prior will.

Here, the argument is the will currently in probate is invalid (by lack of mental capacity) which would make the previous will not revoked because of the later will. That does not mean it is not invalid or revoked for some reason, just that it is not because of the later will.

Thanks for your response.

I guess what is confusing me about this is since this isn't the will she probated and just pulls another will that no one has seen before out of the air, how would we know that this is the most recent one?

It just raises a red flag to me that someone would create a new will when it says the same thing as the one before, I just sense deception here.

None of these are filed with the clerk of courts, the most recent is out of her Suze Orman kit and we don't believe an attorney was ever hired to draft a will so any previous will would be a "form" will as well.

It will be interesting to see what this new one looks like.

how would we know that this is the most recent one?

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Come up with a more recent one or attack this one on some basis.

It just raises a red flag to me that someone would create a new will when it says the same thing as the one before, I just sense deception here.

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If you come up with any proof, the court may be interested, otherwise, no.

None of these are filed with the clerk of courts, the most recent is out of her Suze Orman kit and we don't believe an attorney was ever hired to draft a will so any previous will would be a "form" will as well.

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If the formalities are adhered to, form wills are perfectly legal. Which is a good thing as I bet the vast majority of wills are that way.

Is there any specific language in the will that mentions that the children are specifically disinherited and anything that gives a reason why they were disinherited?

Can it be established medically that he was incompetent at the time the will was executed? Was the degree of Alzheimers documented?

There is no language as to why the kids are disinherited and there is medical proof that he was in moderate to advanced stages of alzheimers at the time.