American Pilot Overturns Mother’s Costa Rica Will Over Missing Interpreters

Costa Rica’s Supreme Court has upheld the annulment of an American woman’s will because she signed a Spanish-language document without the two interpreters the law requires. The decision reopens an estate that includes a 55% stake in a dairy farm that sells its milk to Dos Pinos. The ruling by the court’s Second Chamber, issued in March 2026, sides with the woman’s son, a pilot who lives in Ohio. The will had left him nothing and named his brother sole and universal heir. Besides the dairy stake, the estate includes several agricultural properties, personal property and investments, according to the facts set out in the ruling. The woman, a U.S. citizen living in Guanacaste, signed an open will before a notary public in October 2014. She died in February 2019. Three months later, her other son, who also lived in Costa Rica, was appointed executor as the only person apparently named in the will. After learning of his mother’s death, the pilot traveled to Costa Rica in June 2019 with his legal representatives. He sought to establish his standing as a legal heir and to object to the will. His legal team argued the document lacked the translation required by Article 584 of the Civil Code. Because no record showed that at least two interpreters had taken part, they said, the will was absolutely null. Despite the objection, the notary handling the probate declared the brother sole and universal heir in September 2019. That notary considered it enough that the notary who drew up the will had recorded that she translated it into English herself. The pilot then sued the estate and his brother directly. Besides the language issue, he alleged that no meeting of interested parties had been called. He also said other assets had been left out of the probate, including household goods, bank accounts, cooperative shares, vehicles and investments of significant value. He asked the court to declare the will absolutely null and end his brother’s administration of the estate. He also sought an accounting, the return of assets his brother had disposed of, and recognition of both brothers as equal heirs. The brother rejected the claims and raised several defenses, including lack of standing. In June 2022, the Guanacaste Collegiate Civil Trial Court partially upheld the lawsuit and annulled the will. The court also voided every act that flowed from it, including the executor’s appointment and the sole-heir declaration. It ordered the brother to pay legal costs, with attorney fees set at ¢54.9 million (about $122,000). The brother appealed to the Second Chamber. He argued that his mother understood Spanish after years in Costa Rica and had signed other documents in the language. In his view, the notary’s English translation was a professional courtesy, not a legal requirement, and the trial court had imposed conditions the law does not contain. The magistrates disagreed. They concluded it had not been proven that the woman understood Spanish well enough to grasp the legal scope of her own will. A key piece of evidence was the will itself, in which the notary recorded that she had translated it into English because the woman did not understand Spanish well. The court also weighed testimony from that notary and from a second notary who took part in the signing and later handled the probate. The court treated both statements with caution because both notaries had taken part in the acts under challenge. Their testimony also contradicted what the will itself recorded about the woman’s difficulty with Spanish. According to the ruling, getting by in Spanish, living in Costa Rica for years or signing documents in the language does not show that a person understands the legal implications of a last will. The justices found that the notary’s own translation could not take the place of the two interpreters required by Article 584. They called that omission an essential defect, rejected the appeal and left the annulment in place. Article 584 states that anyone making a will in a foreign language before a notary must do so in the presence of two interpreters of their choosing. Those interpreters translate the testator’s instructions into Spanish. The formality carries particular weight because Costa Rican law gives testators broad control over their estates. Under Article 595 of the Civil Code, a person may leave property to whomever they choose, provided they secure financial support for certain dependents. A will that excludes an adult child can therefore stand if it meets every legal requirement. André Cappella, an associate attorney at the firm Quatro Legal, said everyday conversation in Spanish or a history of signing documents in the language does not prove that someone understands a will’s implications. He added that it is not enough for a notary who speaks the testator’s language to translate the document. When there is doubt, he said, the prudent course is to use the two interpreters the law requires. A version of the will in the testator’s own language can also be prepared, but it does not replace the legal formalities. Cappella said many defects in a will cannot be corrected after the testator dies. Other common grounds for annulment include a missing date, time or signature. Others are failing to read the document, using witnesses who have an interest in the estate, and failing to complete every formality in a single sitting. Unless another valid will exists, the estate now falls under the rules for succession without a will. Under Article 572 of the Civil Code, the first order of heirs is a person’s children, parents and surviving spouse or partner. The case shows that the validity of a will in Costa Rica can depend as much on how it was signed as on what it says.