A will is a snapshot. It captures what someone wanted on the day they signed it. Life keeps moving after that. People die, marriages end, children are born, and the trusts and companies named in the document quietly wind down on their own schedules. The will does not update itself. Most people know what happens […]
The post When the Trust Named…
Most people assume that when a loved one dies and the estate goes through probate, the probate court keeps a watchful hand on the estate’s assets until everything is wrapped up and distributed. That assumption is understandable. In Texas, it is often wrong. The Texas Estates Code creates a powerful and uniquely Texas institution: independent […]
The post When the Probate Exception…
Inheriting a house can feel like a gift, right up until the bills attached to it start showing up. When someone dies owning a home with an unpaid mortgage, the heirs who step into ownership do not step into a clean slate. The debt rides along with the property. And if those heirs ignore a […]
The post Mortgage After Death: The…
Picture a loved one in the final hours of her life. Someone close to her—someone she trusted enough to name as her agent under a durable power of attorney—rushes to change the beneficiary on her annuity. The paperwork gets faxed. The power of attorney gets attached. On the surface it looks like a routine beneficiary […]
The post When a Power of…
Imagine your mother dies after an injury that someone else may have caused. She left no will, no surviving spouse, and no other children. You are her only heir. You file a lawsuit for her estate, and before you ever get a hearing on the merits, the trial court throws it out on jurisdictional grounds. […]
The post When a Son Goes…
Blended families and intestate estates are a recipe for conflict in Texas probate. When someone dies without a will and leaves behind a surviving spouse, children from an earlier marriage, and a single piece of real estate that several people claim, the courthouse is rarely far behind. Those fights get messier still when a relative […]
The post When the Surviving Spouse…
When someone dies unexpectedly, especially in a traumatic accident, a filing deadline buried in the Texas Estates Code is the last thing on the family’s mind. People are grieving. Caregiving duties shift overnight. The paperwork of settling an estate slides to the bottom of the list. And in families where property has passed informally and […]
The post When Life Gets in…
There is a scenario that estate attorneys and probate professionals see more often than they would like: an elderly or grieving testator, weakened by illness and loss, enters a new relationship late in life, and that relationship reshapes the disposition of an estate built over decades. When the new spouse then controls the finances, moves […]
The post When the Court Steps…
Estate fights get personal fast when a house is on the line. A dependent administrator decides the family home has to be sold to pay debts. The heirs see the property as theirs. So when the probate court signs an order allowing the sale, the first instinct is to run to the court of appeals […]
The post Appealable Probate Judgment: When…
An executor who gets removed and stripped of fees has one real shot at fixing it: an appeal. But the clock on that appeal is short, and in probate it does not always start when you think it does. Miss the window and it does not matter how wrong the trial court was — the […]
The post When an Executor Is…
