Family ranch disputes have a way of outlasting everyone’s patience. Someone dies, land is left behind, old grievances resurface, and the person holding the pen as trustee often turns out to be one of the beneficiaries with something to gain from delay. Years pass. Nothing gets sold. Nothing gets divided. The estate grinds to a […]
The post When a Trustee Ignores…
Most probate work involves the assets you can see. A house, a bank account, a retirement plan, a stack of savings bonds in a safe deposit box. But some of the most valuable things an estate owns are not things at all. They are promises. A buyer who still owes money on a deal. A […]
The post When the Seller Dies…
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…
