Probate

Talk about an aging profession. More than 35% of the licensed attorneys in the State of Texas are over the age of 55. Ouch. Just like other professionals, lawyers can retire, move, get hit by lightning, or die. If that happens to your lawyer, then it can leave you, the client, in a mess. You need to protect yourself from the unintentional fallout. Before we get to the steps you should take, consider...

A lot of people have some extra time on their hands these days. Being stuck in the house means there’s no excuse not to finally get around to some of those projects that you knew you needed to do, but just never could make yourself address.  If you’ve already done all the gardening, cleaning, and closet sorting in your house, maybe now you can take some time to get...

What does it mean to probate a will? Probate is the legal process of making sure the property and assets of a decedent (deceased person) are managed and distributed correctly. Probating a will essentially means proving that the will really was the decedent’s last will and testament and following the directions it outlines for settling the estate—distributing the estate’s assets and paying off the estate’s debts. While it is...

A Disaster for Many.. Transfer on death deeds, legal in Texas since 2015, have been heralded as the latest, greatest method for keeping real property out of probate.  The goal behind them is laudable: provide a simple mechanism for transferring ownership of land to a beneficiary when the owner dies, no probate required. Four years later, how’s that working for us? Not so good. Let’s start with the form:  there isn’t one. The...

One of the more difficult decisions that must be made after the death of a loved one is whether or not to probate the will.   For our purposes, assume the will was properly drawn under the Texas law.   The person who made the will is known as a testator (male) or testatrix (female).  The person named as the administrator in the will is an independent executor (male) or independent...

In my 40 plus years of practice the same misunderstandings keep coming up concerning wills. This article is to help clear up some common issues about how and when wills work. How Wills Work and When They Go Into Effect Wills don’t go into effect until the will has been admitted to probate. No other common legal document must be approved by a court to go into effect, but wills are...

Many families are blessed with a child (or adult) who happens to have a disability. There is obviously some concern regarding that loved one’s care and standard of living once a parent or other caregiver is no longer able to provide for them. SSI and Medicaid Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid can help, but they are limited and require the disabled person to have very depressed levels of assets and...

Wills have been at the center of estate planning for many years. However, wills don’t take legal effect until the person who made the will dies and the Will is admitted to probate. In short, wills don’t have legal effect until you go to court. Frequently, clients will want to avoid having to go to court, whether for reasons of expense, privacy, or just discomfort with being in court. The standard...

The rich and famous are not immune from guardianship, and neither are you. Take, for example, Buzz Aldrin. His guardianship case was in the news in 2018 not only because of his fame but also because of the unusual counteraction that he took:  he sued back. The contretemps started in a Florida court when two of Aldrin’s three children and his business manager filed a guardianship action against Aldrin.  Aldrin, age 88, responded...

Not long ago, I published Part 1 of this Article in which I discussed the State of Texas’s rules for how your property is divided if you die without a will. For many people, that division is far from what they want done with their own assets and possessions.  It also causes sticky joint management issues between children from prior relationships (or their parent/the ex-spouse), and current spouses.  That thought...

  Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. The moment of death marks the end of time for the decedent, and the beginning of time for his or her probate estate.  After death, sometimes things have to happen pretty quickly to preserve the estate or evidence. Here are just a few of the actions that can take place. At any time after death, the court can order an examination of documents in the...