Last week I met with a lady from Houma with no spouse or children. We discussed updating her Louisiana Last Will and Testament. 3 years ago she handwrote a will, which said whoever takes care of her burial will be her sole heir. Her intent is that a family friend be the one to bury her and inherit from, but he is not mentioned anywhere in her will. The ambiguity of her last will and testament would essentially make her estate a free-for-all amongst her various cousins and family members and her ultimate intentions may not be honored. Chances are [...]

Yesterday, I talked with a man from Metairie whose mother died over the weekend. When Mom died, she had plenty of money, but now her kids have no access to her funds because she did not structure her affairs properly. The kids are currently attempting to make funeral arrangements; however, it has become apparent that they will need to find a way to pay for the funeral without the use of Mom’s funds. They will either be forced to use credit cards or their own personal savings to take care of the funeral costs, and will need to wait to [...]

Yesterday, I met with a couple in Metairie who wanted to avoid court supervised probates after each spouse died because they knew multiple probate procedures would create a lot of unwanted stress for the family. We are setting up a Louisiana Revocable Living Trust to accomplish this goal. By creating a Trust that will remain in place even after each spouse dies, we are allowing for the family to access and transact all of the family’s property immediately without the need for court involvement. Without a trust, many of the family’s assets would be essentially frozen after each spouse dies, [...]

Last week I met with a couple from Metairie who were setting up a Louisiana Revocable Living Trust To avoid Probate. In addition to their primary goal of avoiding probate, they wanted to provide for their daughter’s retirement and they wanted to make sure that what ever was left to their daughter did not end up in the hands of their son-in-law. To accomplish these secondary goals we created what is known as a Children’s Inheritance Trust. When you establish a Children’s Inheritance Trust as part of your estate plan you are creating a separate trust in addition to your [...]

Earlier this week I met the daughter of 92 year old woman from Metairie at one of our Free Living Trust events. The daughter was in attendance hoping to find out how to protect Mom’s house from the Nursing Home because Mom was getting to the point where the nursing home will become a reality very soon. The daughter hoped that we could donate mom’s house into her name or establish a trust to protect mom’s house from estate recovery. Estate recovery is when the nursing home forces the sale of your home after you die if you received aid [...]

Following a recent 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?” Well . . .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 [...]

Last Week, I met with a mother and her daughter in Metairie to discuss the best way to protect Mom’s assets from a nursing home. Dad died 2 years earlier after a battle with cancer and Mom inherited a stock account worth about $150,000 and all the rights to the family home from Dad. Mom had recently been diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. The family was worried that as mom’s condition worsened, she would be forced into a nursing home, and the family wanted to do whatever they could to avoid spending all of the money mom [...]