During a recent speaking engagement, a gentleman posed the question to me, “How many people are living without a will?” I was taken aback by this question because I honestly did not know the answer. I have spent all my time preaching the importance of having proper Estate Planning, but didn’t realize how high the level of need is for professional estate services. When I got home, I immediately checked to see if I could find any statistics to indicate the number of Americans without a will, and the results were surprising.According to studies performed in 2007 and 2008 by [...]

Special Needs Trusts are a great tool for protecting your disabled relatives and ensuring their eligibility for valuable Federal Medicaid programs. This article is designed to inform you as to how these trusts are created and administered, and most importantly, to inform you of the benefits of these Special Needs Trusts.Individuals with certain disabilities can receive federal benefits including money for their support and medical expenses from various Medicaid programs. Medicaid is a system set up by the US government specifically designed to assist low income individuals (this is not to be confused with Medicare, federal health insurance for the [...]

Throughout my course work and study of Louisiana Estate law, there was one area of estate law that was only briefly touched upon, and seemed rather insignificant in the whole scheme of things. That seemingly insignificant Louisiana Code provision dealt with small successions. I figured, I’ll never see this in my legal career so I didn’t study the law regarding small successions with too much vigor.Well lo and behold, last week we met with a client who’s father recently passed away and was eligible for the Louisiana small succession. The client was looking to open his father’s succession and was [...]

One of the major issues you should consider when planning for you and your spouse’s passing is the court supervised succession procedure because this will be needed at both spouse’s deaths if not properly planned for. One of the main goals we encounter with married couples involves avoiding the succession altogether by setting up a Revocable Living Trust. The Revocable Living Trust is used to allow for immediate transfer of control over your property to your spouse and ultimately to your heirs without any court supervision.Why would you want to avoid a succession? A court supervised succession procedure costs at [...]

Recently, I received a call from an attorney in Mississippi who needed some assistance with probating a will for a deceased Mississippi resident who held property in Louisiana. Probate is the term used to describe the court procedure that distributes a person’s estate to the heirs after his or her death. In Louisiana we use the term succession to describe this same court supervised process, but ultimately the result is the same, distribution of the person’s property according to his or her will.Typically, only one probate or succession procedure needs to take place because most people only own property in [...]

Following a recent Living Trust and Estate Planning event in Covington, an attendee in her early 50′s asked me, “when is the right age to set up a Living Trust in Louisiana?” There is more than one right answer to this question, but generally, the older you are, the more attractive a living trust will be for you and your family. A Living Trust is used to avoid the court supervised probate succession procedure that usually must take place after your death. In order to avoid probate, your trust must be funded with all of your property that would otherwise [...]

Yesterday, I met with an estate settlement client in our Metairie office whose mother recently passed away, and he was set to receive a large inheritance from his mother’s estate. His greatest concern was the effect this Louisiana inheritance would have on his current child support payments.On the surface, Louisiana child support laws seem to keep inheritance money out of the child support calculation because inheritance is not considered income to the heir. However, the law leaves some wiggle room for Louisiana judges, and courts have taken full advantage of this wiggle room to include inherited assets when determining child [...]

Yesterday afternoon I met with an older couple from Lafourche Parish to finalize and sign their Louisiana Revocable Living Trust documents. This couple owned many parcels of real estate in the Houma/Thibodaux area, and ultimately it was a difficult task for our firm to track down all the real estate they owned. As a result, the process of completing their trust took much longer than the 4-6 weeks it typically takes to establish a Louisiana Revocable Living Trust. At the end of the meeting, the wife asked me, was all this work really worth it?Without a doubt the answer was [...]

Yesterday, I met with a client in our Mandeville office to establish a Louisiana Revocable Living Trust. One of the primary concerns that came up was the client’s nervousness about naming either of her two children as the Successor Trustee of her trust and the Executor of her will. Her fear arose from the fact that her kids often butted heads, and she didn’t want them to have to work together to settle her estate, nor did she want them to feel that she was favoring one over the other.The solution we came up with was to name a neutral [...]

Yesterday, I met with a gentleman in Metairie who was concerned about his wife’s ability to manage his estate in the event he predeceased her. She was beginning to show signs of dementia, and he was concerned about what might happen to his half of their Louisiana community property. He wanted to make sure that the money would be there if his wife needed it, but he also didn’t want to leave the money under her control for fear it would disappear quickly.So we came up with this solution for his Louisiana Last Will and Testament. Instead of naming his [...]