In this article, you will learn:
- Necessary information about forced heirship and lapsed legacy
- Why everyone should consider hiring a probate or estate planning attorney
- How testamentary trust disputes are settled
The forced heir, in Louisiana, is defined as children under the age of 24, or who have a permanent disability. As long as the disability prevents them from supporting themselves, the state has a vested interest in making sure that if they have an inheritance coming, they’re going to get it. The forced heir has the right to a portion of the estate, depending on how many other children there are. So, if it’s more than one child together, they’re entitled to at least half of the estate split by the number of children there are.
Ways To Restrict Forced Heirship in Louisiana
Forced Heirship can be restricted. For example, you could leave it in trust as long as they get the income from it every year, and that can restrict their access to the principal of that inheritance. But other than that, there’s no real way to restrict it.
How Trust Property Is Affected In Louisiana Succession Or Probate
If you have a valid trust and you have property that’s in your trust which is titled properly, then that trust property will bypass the entire succession process. So, we will look to the terms of the trust to determine what happens to that property, and it will never be part of the succession.
Louisiana Testamentary Trust Disputes
If you have a trust as part of your will, that’s a testamentary trust. So, instead of creating a trust that’s active now, this trust gets created as part of the succession process. It would be like any other inheritance dispute. For example, one way it might come up is if you left something to an individual in trust, and they didn’t want it in trust, they want it outright. In that case they could try to argue that the trust was invalid, and that would be one way to dispute it. In a dispute, it would be just like any successions dispute – they would file a motion or some kind of a legal petition in the succession record, and you duke it out in court and then see who wins.
Lapsed Legacy In Louisiana Succession or Probate
A lapsed legacy is something, for example, if you say something like, “I want to leave my truck to my son,” but at the time you die, there is no truck. So again, you can state in your will how you want that handled. If you want your son to say “If the truck is gone, then go ahead and give him $10,000,” that’s one way. If your will is completely silent, then they get nothing.
Why You Need A Louisiana Succession Or Probate Attorney
It’s challenging to handle a succession on your own. If you have any amount of property involved, the provisions of Louisiana law are very technical, and it’ll just be a lot smoother if you have an attorney. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do it on your own, but you’re going to have to study the law and get the forms to figure out how to proceed.
How Often Louisiana Estate Planning Problems Need To Be Fixed
Our law firm prides itself on helping our clients with estate planning, successions and probate, and Medicaid Planning. Sometimes, issues arise with do-it-yourself wills that fail to comply with the technical requirements for executing a valid will. This is especially important because Louisiana’s laws regarding the execution of wills are absolute. In other words, if a mistake is made on the will, the entire document is thrown out.
Other issues that may arise for us involve wills that are done completely online without the assistance of an estate planning attorney. On these websites, you can simply print out a will and fill it out. While that may seem easy enough, these are typically completed incorrectly. Incorrectly completed documents could cause you a lot of issues and your family may only realize that when it’s already too late to take action.
To ensure your estate planning is done right the first time, schedule your initial consultation by calling (225) 465-1090 today.
