A parent sets up a trust to care for a child who will need help for the rest of his life. The parent names three trustees and tells them to make every decision together. That works fine while the parent is alive and running the show. Then the parent dies, and the two trustees left...KEEP READING

A parent pays a lawyer to put together an estate plan, trusting that the lawyer will set things up correctly and keep the tax bill down for the family. The parent dies. Then the family learns the plan was drafted badly and the estate owes far more in taxes than it should. The children want...KEEP READING

A parent dies and leaves behind a vacation property that earns rental income. One person, often a surviving partner or the child who lives closest, ends up running it: taking bookings, collecting deposits, paying the bills. Everyone else in the family wants to know where the money went. That sounds like an easy question. It...KEEP READING

A family trust is supposed to make things simpler. A parent or grandparent sets one up so that when the time comes, the children receive what was left for them without a fight. But a trust is only as good as the people willing to administer it. When nobody steps forward to do that job,...KEEP READING

An executor is supposed to protect the estate. But an executor is also a person with her own property, her own bank accounts, and her own land. What happens when those two roles collide — when the person administering the estate sells something she personally owns, and the sale hurts the estate she is supposed...KEEP READING

A parent dies. Within days, two family members are at the courthouse with opposite stories. One says there was no will. The other hands the clerk a will and asks the court to admit it. The judge hears them together, admits the will, and signs an order that looks like it closes the file. But...KEEP READING

When a family member believes an executor is hiding the ball, the instinct is to move fast. Every week without a straight answer about the estate’s money feels like another week of assets slipping away. So the interested party pushes. He sends a demand letter. He files a motion. He asks for a hearing. And...KEEP READING

When a parent dies and leaves property to the surviving spouse, families usually assume the surviving parent will pass that property along the way everyone expects. In a lot of Texas families, that means a gift deed — a simple, direct conveyance from the surviving parent to a chosen child, often with the parent keeping...KEEP READING

When a homeowner dies without a will, the family often assumes the mortgage dies too, or that the bank will sort things out in probate before anyone has to worry about it. That assumption can be dangerously wrong. It can land surviving family members in federal court facing foreclosure on the family home. Here is...KEEP READING

When a veteran receives VA disability pay, federal law says those funds belong to the veteran alone. But that protection gets tested the moment the money lands in a joint bank account shared with a spouse. Does mixing those payments with community funds wipe out the veteran’s separate property rights? It comes up all the...KEEP READING