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Estate Planning In Louisiana

In this article, you will discover:

• Why online estate planning may cost you more money in Louisiana.
• How planning ahead can save you from unnecessary litigation.
• How estate planning can protect your assets while you’re still living.

What Is Estate Planning? Why Do We Need It In Louisiana?

Estate planning is preparing for the inevitable conclusion of life. The bible says it’s appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment. Death is one appointment no person can avoid. It’s going to happen eventually; whether you step out and tragically slip-and-fall or if you die at a 103, it’s going to come.

Estate planning is determining how you want your assets—the things you worked hard to earn—divided or maintained. Often, people just don’t like talking about it or dealing with it, but all you’re doing is hurting the people that you love the most in the long run by avoiding the planning.

In Louisiana, there are certain qualifications for estate planning. For example, for the last will and testament (your will), many people want to go online and download one to do it themselves. What ends up happening is it is completely worthless. The strict requirements for a last will and testament under Louisiana law aren’t always included in these online forms. In Louisiana, you must make sure you hire someone who is familiar with these procedures and is going to ensure what you desire now while you’re alive will actually be fulfilled once you are gone.

There are other portions of estate planning, such as a power of attorney. Power of attorney allows someone to represent you in different aspects. Basically, if that person signs your name in the capacity of your agent—or in Louisiana, they’re often called a mandatary—it has the same legal effect as if you signed your own name. If you develop Alzheimer’s, dementia, or other health issues that leave you unable to care for yourself anymore, your child, spouse, or whoever may now have the ability to continue your affairs for you, such as your banking, insurance, etc.

If you develop some type of degenerative mental disease, like Alzheimer’s or dementia, there’s going to come a time when you’re no longer able to conduct your affairs. If you fail to get the paperwork done to give someone that power while you’re still in your right mind and in good health, then the only way your loved ones can start dealing with the bank or insurance companies on your behalf is to file an interdiction.

An interdiction is literally where the son, for example, has to file a lawsuit against dad, alleging dad is no longer able to take care of himself. A doctor will be appointed to evaluate dad or his medical records. The court will appoint a curator, an attorney to represent dad. Then you have a trial over the matter. A judge will have to decide, based on the doctor and the attorney, whether dad is able to care for himself. If dad is found to not be able to care for himself, then the son who brought the suit will be appointed curator, giving him the ability to make those decisions.

An interdiction process is going to cost between $5,000 and $10,000 on the low-end. By planning in advance and establishing a power of attorney, in most cases, you can save that whole process. That process also often takes eight months to a year.

Estate planning is just a matter of planning that allows you to have the flexibility to plan for all of life’s ups and downs and the inevitable conclusion of time of the human body.

Is Estate Planning Just For What Happens After I Die? Can It Benefit Me During My Lifetime?

Estate planning is not just for after you die; it can benefit you during your lifetime through power of attorneys or different trust instruments. If you have assets you want to be protected, you can do a revocable trust. This gives you the ability to control how these assets are distributed or maintained, within the limits of the law, after you die.

There is no right age to get these things done. It’s not an age thing. It’s not something you do when you turn 70 because you know it’s going to get done. You never know when tragedy might strike. You might become a 35-year-old with a degenerative mental problem, needing someone to take care of you at an early age. That’s just how life goes. It’s always best to plan for life and death.

For more information on Estate Planning Law in Louisiana, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (318) 633-0053 today.

Louisiana Estate Planning Basics

In this article, you will discover:

• The must-have estate planning documents.
• How the progression of life changes your plans.
• Which heirs are protected by Louisiana law.

What Important Estate Planning Documents Should Be Part Of My Estate Plan In Louisiana?

If you’re going to do the basic estate plan, the main three documents you need are:

• Last will and testament
• Power of attorney (both a durable and medical power of attorney)
• Living will or end-of-life declaration

With a durable power of attorney, you can document how to deal with your bank accounts and land. With a medical power of attorney, you can deal with healthcare, long-term care, and doctor decisions.

After these big three, you can go up from there. You can spend as much money and make it as complicated as you want with different types of trusts, LLCs, corporations, and things of that nature.

How Often Do I Need To Review My Estate Planning Documents In Louisiana? Can I Make Changes Or Updates At Any Time?

There’s not a hard-and-fast rule on how often you need to review your estate plan. I would do it based on circumstance. How does life change? Have you had an additional child you didn’t have before? Do you have grandchildren you want to plan for? Estate planning documents are responsive documents; they’re reacting to the changes in your life. Update them accordingly.

Outside of an irrevocable trust, there is no limitation to updating your estate plans. You can change your last will and testament and power of attorney as often as you want to.

In Louisiana, we have codicils or amendments to the will. You don’t have to change the entire will; you can change just one line. If you had everything going to your three children in equal portions and now you have a fourth child, you can make an amendment to have everything going to your four children in equal portions. This way, little Johnny or Suzie, the surprise child you had at age 42, isn’t being left out of the will you made when you were 36. Those amendments need to be made as life changes, but there’s nothing that says you can’t make them along the way.

Louisiana is a forced heirship state, meaning there are certain classes of people that you cannot write out of your will. If you have a child under the age of 24 or a mentally or physically disabled child that is unable to care for their property, person, or business, you have to leave them something. Depending on how many children meet those qualifications, it could be from one-fourth to one-third that you have to leave them.

If you have a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old child when you pass away and you try to leave everything to their stepmom, the law is going to say, “No. That request gets reduced. Your two children will get at least one-third of anything in that will.” There are ways to plan for this. You can use life insurance to satisfy that requirement.

If you are worried about your property and how those things are maintained, you can take out a life insurance policy and make your children the beneficiary. You can make your estate the beneficiary of it. This way, your life insurance is distributed according to your will. In Louisiana, your will does not determine how your life insurance is distributed. Two separate things.

Your life insurance policy or insurance policies are going to be distributed according to who you put as the beneficiary on that policy. If you want it to be included in your will, then you make your estate the beneficiary to ensure your insurance policy is distributed according to your will. You can put in your will, “To satisfy the forced portion of my two young children, use the life insurance policy in the amount of $200,000 to satisfy the obligation I have to my kids.”

There are a lot of nuances people don’t realize. That’s why it’s so important to get an attorney to do your will, especially because there are things you cannot put in a will, like prohibited substitutions. You cannot leave your house to someone then say, “And when you die, it goes to Johnny.” Pretty much every other state allows you to do that, but not in Louisiana.

You definitely need to consult an attorney to make sure you’re not making those mistakes. They can help you find a lawful way to accomplish your goals, perhaps through a trust instrument or an LLC of some sort.

For more information on Estate Planning Law in Louisiana, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (318) 633-0053 today.

Do I Need A Louisiana Estate Planning Attorney?

In this article, you will discover:

• How unique Louisiana laws can cost you money.
• How to ensure your estate planning documents aren’t thrown out of court.

Can I Create My Own Estate Plan Online, Or Do I Need A Louisiana Estate Planning Attorney?

Louisiana has a unique set of laws, so you absolutely need a Louisiana estate planning attorney. Louisiana is predominantly a civil code jurisdiction rooted in French and Spanish law. The other 49 states have common law, which is rooted in British law. Online estate planning attorneys are generally from other states. They are making provisions, like prohibited substitution, that are completely legal in California, Nebraska, or Tennessee, but in Louisiana, the court will throw it out. It will not be enforced because it’s not in line.

If you do it yourself or use an out-of-state attorney, the whole will might be null and void. Louisiana requires an attestation clause—one that attests the signer of the will has done so in the presence of a notary and two witnesses. If that little two- or three-sentence portion is not above the signature line in the will, then the entire will is worthless.

I frequently have clients come in with something they printed out from a legal website that is completely invalid in Louisiana. They wasted the $200 spent on it when they could have gone to a Louisiana specific attorney. You must be cognizant that Louisiana has a unique set of laws compared to the rest of the country, especially in estate planning.

For more information on Estate Planning Law in Louisiana, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (318) 633-0053 today.

Wills and Living Wills

Estate Planning In Louisiana – Wills And Trusts

In this article, you will discover:

• When you need more than just a will.
• How a trust can safeguard your assets, now and after death.
• How certain trusts can better protect your loved ones.

Is A Will Enough On Its Own In Louisiana?

If a will is in proper form, it is enough to ensure your things go to whomever you want them to. Is a will enough for estate planning? No, a will doesn’t kick into effect until after you pass away. There are so many things that can occur before then. You want to make sure you’ve done proper planning to protect yourself, such as having an adequate power of attorney or perhaps a trust and living will

A living will, also called the end-of-life declaration, says, “I don’t want to be kept artificially alive.” Meaning, you don’t want to be on tubes and ventilators if that’s all that is keeping you alive. What it does is prevents your spouse or children from having to make that decision during a time of grief.

For example, mom has succumbed to cancer, and the doctor says, “She’s gone. The only thing keeping her alive is the ventilator and the feeding tube.” The children are not going to want to pull the plug. They feel like that is giving up hope on mom. If mom plans with a living will declaration, she has already made the decision for them without putting a burden on the kids in an already difficult time.

What Exactly Is A Trust? What Are Common Types Of Trusts?

A trust is an invisible person; it’s judicial fiction, like a ghost man on base. When I was growing up, we played baseball in the backyard. If we didn’t have enough players to play four on four, a time would come when you’d be on second base, but it is your turn at-bat. We’d say, “Ghost man on second, creating this invisible placeholder to hold your spot on second while you went to bat. A trust is kind of like that invisible placeholder.

In the eyes of the law, a trust is an invisible person. It’s a person with rights and the ability to own, sell, and distribute assets like land and money. It’s a person that can make choices but who is completely controlled by someone else.

If you are trying to protect your assets from potential future lawsuits or liabilities, you can place them in a trust. In the eyes of the law, it’s no longer you that own the asset(s) but the trust that you’ve established. Whoever establishes the trust is the settlor. Then whoever controls the trust, within reasonable limitations, is the trustee. This is the person who controls who gets what assets and how those assets are protected or managed. Lastly, there are the beneficiaries, the people whom the trust benefits.

There are different types of beneficiaries. There may be an income beneficiary. If a trust owns an apartment complex and is getting rent, the income beneficiary gets that money distributed to them according to the terms of the trust. Then you have the principal or property beneficiaries. When the trust concludes, or the assets are distributed, they are the ones who actually own the apartment complex or other property itself.

In Louisiana, we have revocable and irrevocable trusts. With a revocable trust, you establish it while you’re still alive, and you can revoke it or amend it at any time. Often, it’s set up within the trust to automatically converts to a new revocable trust upon your death. This makes it so it can’t be undone, except according to trust terms.

Louisiana actually recognizes pet trusts to benefit and maintain your pet in the event something happens to you. You can set up a trust for your children, for their college education, or what have you.

There are also spendthrift trusts with added benefits for whomever the beneficiaries are. If the beneficiary were to get a judgment against them, say they had a house built, and they didn’t pay the contractor. If the contractor sues them for the $100,000 they owe him, he cannot sue to get the money out of that trust if it is a spendthrift trust. The trust cannot be used to satisfy that judgment.

Spendthrift trusts have some restrictions on how to operate the trust, but it also offers asset protection. It does not offer protection against child support obligation, violent felonies, or things of that nature. Child support can reach into that trust, but under most circumstances, it protects the assets from judgments.

For more information on Estate Planning Law in Louisiana, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (318) 633-0053 today.

• Trusts
• Power Of Attorney
• Medical Power of Attorney
• Durable Power of Attorney
  

Probate And Succession In Louisiana Explained

In this article, you will learn:

• When probate and succession may come into play
• Why probate should be avoided

Succession is the process from how property of any type moves from one generation to the next when somebody has passed away. Probate is kind of a common term, for the broad things in most states. But in Louisiana, probate is a subsection; you probate a will. If a person has a will, you must probate it, you have to file a petition to probate the will, and you ask the judge to review the will and find that it's in proper form. As in most states, in Louisiana, there are strict requirements for a valid will, and if it does not meet all those requirements, it’s null and void. A will can be created by the individual, but it is not recommended. 

If there is a will involved, you must go and probate it. The judge reviews it, and says the will is in proper form and order. From that, you have to file the petition for possession, which is basically asking that whatever the will has said be certified as valid. Now, if you die with a will, it's called a testate succession. If you die without one, it's called intestate. So, if it’s an intestate succession, you're not probating anything because there's no will. 

You're just filing a petition for possession, and the law says if you didn't have a will, then that means in their mind, you didn't have an opinion of what you wanted your assets to go to. If you don't care about it, then the law is going to have a default set of rules, and oftentimes, those rules will surprise you and people end up with stuff that you didn't assume would get. 

When Probate Is Necessary In Louisiana

Probate is only necessary in Louisiana if there is a will involved, but a succession is necessary to enable to move property from one generation to the next. This doesn’t mean property like land, any property at all that someone is going to have ownership related to it. Anytime there's a property that must be passed from one generation to the next, the only way to do that is through a succession. A small succession or a succession by affidavit can be done. If the total value of all the property that the decedent, the person who passed away, owns is under $125,000, you can do a small succession. That means it does not require the signature of a judge or a court hearing, it just is an affidavit that is filed and it's complete. It can be very beneficial for people who don't have a whole lot of assets but need to get the small piece of land that Dad had moved to the next generation. If it is more than $125,000, or if there was a will, you cannot do a small succession with a will, it has to be intestate. If there was a will or if the total value is more than $125,000, you have to open a formal succession, and then you have to have the judge review and sign off on it and possibly have a hearing depending on the facts. So the necessity is to make sure it gets from one generation to the next.

You will commonly see, especially in real estate and property, great grandparents will pass away, but they won't have a succession done. The property automatically goes to their three children. Now you have three children who own the property, and then they pass away, and each of them had three children. So now there's nine people that are title owners of the property, but no succession has been done, and then those pass away, and they all had three children, so now you have 27 names on a succession. If you’ve got to sell that 40-piece tract of land, you either have to locate and track down all 27 people who are spread out all over the nation by now, or you have to go back and start cleaning up all of the past actions. So, it’s always in your best interest to go ahead and do that succession, especially if there's land and property involved. 

For more information on Modification Of A Spousal Support Order In LA, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (318) 633-0053 today.