Guardianship fights inside a family rarely end when the judge signs the order. The relative who lost often keeps looking for a way to undo it, and one of the first places they look is the very start of the case: was the proposed ward properly served? Texas law is specific about who can hand […]
The post Does a Service Defect…
When a beneficiary thinks a trust has been mismanaged, the first thing he needs is the paper. Bank statements, tax returns, ledgers, and the accountant’s workpapers usually tell the real story. The trouble is that the paper is often not where the lawsuit is. The trust case is in Texas, but the trustee’s accountants may […]
The post Subpoenaing Out-of-State Accountants in…
A lot of divorce settlements include a promise about the kids. One parent agrees to leave the children of that marriage a share of everything when he dies. Then life moves on. He remarries, builds new wealth with a new spouse, and puts most of it in both their names. When he dies, the jointly […]
The post A Divorce-Decree Promise Enforced…
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 […]
The post Can You Sue the…
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, […]
The post Can You Appeal a…
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 […]
The post What Happens to a…
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 […]
The post The Case Texas Rejected:…
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 […]
The post When an Unsigned Trust…
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 […]
The post When a Probate Order’s…
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 […]
The post When Does Unsworn Testimony…
