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 [...]

Last week, I began working on the Last Will and Testament for a Metairie couple who were leaving their assets equally to their 3 children after they both passed. One of their biggest goals was compensating their daughter for her role as executor of the estate. They thought it would be appropriate for her to receive a little bit more than her two brothers because of the work she would have to take on as executor.Typically you would lay out in your will that the executor gets a percentage of the estate (anywhere from 1 to 3%) as compensation. However, [...]

Yesterday, I visited with a married couple at their house in Houma to discuss how to best structure their Louisiana Estate Plan. Their biggest concern was simplifying the estate settlement process to avoid complications, costs, and delays after death. However, they were also concerned because they were both on their second marriage and had a marriage contract (prenuptial agreement) which classified certain assets that they owned as separate property. Traditionally, the surviving spouse remains in control of the entire estate as long as they live. This couple wanted their separate property to go out to each of their children when [...]

Federal Estate Tax is an issue faced by wealthy Louisiana residents that forces their family to pay a nearly 50% percent tax to the government if someone has too much money when they die. Currently, single persons with over about $5.45 million and married couples with over $10.9 million dollars are subject to federal estate tax. The family must pay between 40% and 50% tax on any amounts in the estate exceeding the aforementioned limits. So the question becomes, is there any way Louisiana residents can avoid their family being forced to pay this exorbitant tax?One option is to slowly [...]

In a former blog post, we discussed how you can make $14,000 yearly donations to children, grandchildren and others in order to lower your taxable estate and avoid estate tax. Today, we will explore paying for education expenses for your kids and grandkids, another option for lowering your taxable estate to get it down below or near the current $5.3 million (single persons) and $10.6 million (married persons) federal estate tax exemption levels. This option can be used in conjunction with yearly donations to speed up the process of removing assets from your estate. Paying for tuition on behalf of [...]

This week I met with a married couple in Mandeville who owns multiple pieces of real estate here in Louisiana. The real estate comprised the bulk of their assets and they didn’t have much else in the way of liquid assets. The husband is in the early stages of dementia and they are concerned about his need for long term care in the future. To address this concern, they wisely purchased long-term care insurance policies years earlier. However, the coverage on these policies only extends for 3 years. They are worried that 3 years of coverage will not be enough [...]