Estate Planning

Can a comic valentine lead to a will contest? You bet. The year was 1896. Deep in the heart of Texas, a certain elderly woman received an unsigned comic valentine. According to the appellate court opinion (which we will liberally quote because of its picturesque language) the card was intended as a “burlesque” upon the woman and was “calculated to incite in her a high degree of mortification and shame.” What...

Somewhere around age 60, most people start worrying about mental decline. That is not surprising since we see it all around us. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of adults 65 and older suffer from cognitive impairment and at least 10% suffer from dementia. At the same time, adults are working longer. Forty percent of people 55 and older are still working, compared with only 29 percent in 1993. Expect...

(This is the final in a series of articles about Texas probate.) There are very few types of documents that are as misunderstood as the Affidavit of Heirship. Perhaps that is because the same name is commonly used to describe two different documents. There is the Affidavit of Heirship, also known as the Affidavit of Facts Concerning the Identity of Heirs, that is described in the Estates Code, and then there...

(This is the fourth in a series regarding probate procedures in Texas.) It took four courts and several years but, by gosh, justice was done in the case of Hennig v. Didyk. This story is about divorce, death and money. Matt and Wendy married and then divorced. In the divorce decree, Matt was awarded his employment benefits, including his life insurance. After the divorce, Matt logged onto the employer’s benefits system...

By Kendra Rey Just what is your relationship with your Valentine?  In this month of l’amour, do you know if that person you are cozying up with is your spouse or just a close friend? And what is the legal effect of that? (Leave it to a lawyer to make “Love” something debatable!) If you have gone through a ceremonial marriage with your significant other, then you know you have a...

Harold never wanted to spend the time or money making out a will. He was fond of saying “Why would I want to waste my money? It won’t be my problem – I’ll be dead. Let my relatives figure it out.” Hahaha. Good one, Harold. What Happens If You Die Without A Will In Texas It was only after Harold was dead, his assets were frozen, and his creditors were clamoring at...

Most relationships change over time. Woody Allen summed it up nicely in the movie Annie Hall: “A relationship, I think, is, is like a shark, you know, it has to constantly move forward or it dies, and I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”   If your relationship with an agent you named in your Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA) has turned into a dead shark,...

No Thanksgiving would be complete without sending up a big thanks to Congress for the Garn-St. Germain Act.   What? You’ve never heard of Garn -St. Germain? Grab yourself a cup of coffee and settle into a comfortable chair. This is one story you want to hear. Why Did The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act get Passed? It starts back in 1982 with a seemingly-innocent little paragraph known as the “due-on-sale clause.” This...

Let’s start with the numbers: 10 and 1,000,000,000,000.   Over this decade,  $1 trillion is expected to change hands through inheritance.  The majority of that will end up in the hands of Baby Boomers.  And while one study found that the average inheritance was only $50,000, there will be a lot of inheritances in the $1 million plus range.    That is serious money, folks. If you live in Texas and one of...

Dealing with an addict in the family is, to put it mildly, challenging. The impact on a family can range from mere nuisance to major disruption. It is no wonder that the reaction of many is to cut the addict out of their estate plan. There is a better way. Create a written revocable living trust naming the troubled relative as the beneficiary. This is by no means a cookie-cutter document. Think...

Merrily we have drifted into the world of the internet while abandoning file cabinets, stripping picture albums and tossing piles of unwanted paper along the way. The lure of the cloud is impossible to ignore. You alone hold the magic formula of logins and passwords and URLs where your treasures may be found.  Financial documents and accounts for banking, brokerages and cryptocurrency, frequent-flier and credit-card points, photos, blogs, social-media accounts,...

SHHHHH. Can we talk privately? It’s about the kids. I know you have some assets that you want to set aside for them, but…….. you’ve been worried. You don’t want the kids to become trust fund babies. If they get even a hint about how much wealth they will have when you die – well, let’s just say they won’t have much incentive to pursue an education or trade. I have...