In prior articles, we have considered that planning in Texas can be done with a last will and testament or a revocable living trust. Which is best for you? A Texas will, when probated, gives an executor authority to transfer all assets in the State of Texas which includes personal property regardless where the financial [...]
What is the difference of doing your planning with a will or a living trust? A will is generally a simpler document to draft and therefore you save some up-front costs in creating the document. However, since probate is required of a will, you have costs that are going to be incurred when [...]
What's the difference between doing planning with a will versus a revocable trust? Most people understand the concept of a will. It is someone's written legal instructions as to how their assets are being divided and who is going to be in charge - their executor. A revocable living trust is something that many [...]
A second fundamental reason why we plan is to deal with incapacity or disability as opposed to death. Although I can guarantee you all of you will die, I can assure you that most of you will have someone in your family affected by incapacity. Incapacity means the legal inability to make decisions for yourself [...]
For most people, when they think of estate planning, they think of planning for death, which is part but not everything. An entirely different subcategory is planning for Medicaid eligibility or avoiding excessive nursing home expenses and we will address that in a future video. But for now, let's concentrate on why we plan and [...]
Just what do we mean when we say you need to do your estate planning? To some that means making sure that they have decreased taxes, decreased legal expenses, or attempted to avoid conflict. Those are all part of the process and things to consider, so estate planning means different things to different [...]
We live in a scan and email world where documents are executed electronically. Even million-dollar real estate deals are electronically signed, which is perfectly legal. It is common to store business records on computers. Is that good enough? I'm not a tech guy, but please BACK UP! Other than that pithy advice, you should have [...]
Are you new to Texas? Well then, "Howdy!" Over 150,000 have joined us in our corner of the Lone Star State in the last year. Hopefully, before you moved to Texas, you had good, up-to-date estate planning. But, since estate planning laws are different from state to state, if Texas is now your residence, you [...]
Our firm mission is to take the fear and unpredictability out of probate, and the other services we provide. Despite our best efforts, the word "probate" works as a bogeyman that causes some to shake with irrational fear. The concern is that probate will significantly deplete an estate, usually by increased legal fees. First, here [...]
The trauma of a major medical crisis is compounded by a lack of advanced legal and financial planning. We can wag our heads all day about someone's failure to properly plan, but we must realistically deal with the hand that is dealt to the family of someone who has failed to plan. The key decision-making [...]