When a relative goes to probate court and gets a temporary guardian appointed for a parent, things can move fast. Sometimes the first order is signed before the parent has a lawyer or a hearing. For the person on the receiving end, that can feel like the courthouse took her checkbook and her independence before...KEEP READING
When a family fight breaks out over an estate, the person in charge of the estate is usually the first target. An heir thinks the executor is the wrong person for the job, asks the probate judge to remove her, and the judge says no. The heir’s next thought is obvious: appeal, and appeal now,...KEEP READING
When a family fights over a guardianship for years, most people assume the fight ends when the loved one dies. The person who needed protecting is gone. What is left for the court to do? Quite a bit, as it turns out. A ward’s death ends the guardian’s authority over the person, but it does...KEEP READING
When a lawyer botches a will or trust, the people who get hurt are usually the ones who were supposed to inherit. The client is dead. The mistake often doesn’t surface until the estate is in probate, and by then the money is going somewhere the client never intended. So can a disappointed beneficiary sue...KEEP READING
A grandmother hires a lawyer to plan her estate. She wants her children to get specific gifts, and she wants what is left to go to her grandchildren through a trust. She signs the papers, dies a few months later, and the family learns the trust doesn’t work. The money that was supposed to go...KEEP READING
Probate cases don’t end with one neat judgment the way most lawsuits do. A single estate can produce several orders over months or years, and some of them can be appealed right away. If you miss the deadline to appeal one of those orders, you can lose the issue for good. So it matters a...KEEP READING
Original wills go missing all the time. Someone moves into assisted living, a house gets cleaned out, papers get shuffled, and years later the family finds a copy of the will but not the signed original. Texas lets you probate a copy, but you have to prove more than you would with the original in...KEEP READING
Most people picture a will being signed the same way: a pen, a signature line on the last page, and a full name written out in front of witnesses. But people who draft their own wills don’t always follow the script. Sometimes the signature line gets skipped entirely. When that happens, the family is left...KEEP READING
A lot of people think a will does its job the moment someone dies. The will says the house goes to you, so the house is yours. You keep living there, paying the taxes and fixing the roof, and nobody says otherwise. Then years later you try to sell, refinance, or hire a contractor, and...KEEP READING
Mom gets sick. One of her kids drives in from out of state, packs a bag, and brings her home “just until things get sorted out.” A few months later another sibling takes her to a third state and says she is staying. Now three states each have some claim to her, and everyone wants...KEEP READING
