If you are a holistic wealth manager and wish to discuss with Paul Rabalais how guiding clients through consistent, reliable, and predictable estate planning legal services as the cornerstone of creating long term relationships and business growth, email paul@aeplawyers.com. In the subject line, write “Grow Wealth Management Business”

circumstances surrounding when someone, or a couple, creates a living trust to avoid the attorney and court-involved probate process at death, but then when they pass away, a probate is still required.With a living trust based estate plan, the concept is create your living trust instrument which dictates who inherits from you, then transfer your assets from your name to your trust, and then when you pass away, those assets can be transferred out of your trust to your beneficiaries without the expense and delays of probate.

How Louisiana estate planning laws and rules are so different from the laws and regulations of other states.

In several areas, Louisiana law is different from the laws of the other 49 states, primarily because Louisiana is a civil law jurisdiction with Spanish and French origins, as opposed to a common law legal system which emerged in England. Nonetheless the following are three unique estate planning differences between Louisiana and the rest of the states:

1. Usufruct

2. Forced Heirship

3. Community Property

In this post, I describe the circumstances surrounding your estate, after you pass away, requiring the services of at least two attorneys or law firms in order to settle your estate.

In this post, I’m going to answer the most often asked questions about our national estate planning law firm called America’s Estate Planning Lawyers, or AEPL for short.

Five tips that you should consider before you have your first last will and testament made.

Let’s say it’s about that time - you’re not getting any younger, you’re accumulating some assets, you may have one or more children, and you know it’s time to address estate planning. You’re thinking “Geez, I don’t even have a will. I don’t want the government getting everything if I pass away.” By the way, if you don’t have a will, it’s unlikely that the government is going to get your entire estate, but the government will determine who does inherit from you.

Time to stop procrastinating and get your will done. Here are five tips that you should be aware of when making your first Will.

Five Mistakes People Make in 2023 When Setting Up a Living Trust

In this post, I am going to describe how the power of attorney law in Florida is different than other states.

In this post, I analyze the decision whether to leave an inheritance to someone outright or in a trust. I run through 7 scenarios where it may be important to leave one or more beneficiaries’ inheritance in a trust instead of leaving it to them outright.

In this post, I analyze the similarities and differences between fair and equal when it comes to how you leave your estate to your heirs.

I was lead to this topic over the years as people will discuss their proposed estate distribution schedule and then they will ask me, “Paul, does that seem fair to you?” And that’s when I laugh…because I am not the one to determine what is fair when it comes to your estate planning decisions - only YOU can determine whether a purported estate distribution is fair.

This post addresses the top reason why Americans may want to consider establishing a living trust. Here you can find out the many reasons why people all across America set up living trusts.

This post discusses how a married couple’s joint living trust could be set up to get split into three new trusts upon the death of the first spouse to die. So when a married couple sets up their “avoid probate” Revocable Living Trust, there are both tax and non-tax factors that drive couples to set up their trust and their estate a certain way.

This post describes the many ways a springing power of attorney can spring into effect. Like What a springing power of attorney is. A power of attorney, from an estate planning perspective, is its own stand-alone legal document that gives someone else, often referred to as an Agent, or Attorney-in-Fact, (we’ll use Agent for this post) the power, during your lifetime, to transact on your behalf.

How “Joe Public” Thinks About Estate Planning

This post describes how the public thinks about estate planning at different stages of their life, and then you can determine whether you are similar to others, or whether your thinking is unique.

I address two circumstances surrounding privacy as it relates to the typical revocable living trust. First I address what privacy expectations you can have during your lifetime if you establish a RLT, and then second I address what information remains private surrounding your RLT after you pass away.

When someone thinks about the reasons to create a living trust, it’s not common to first think about making it easier for loved ones to transact for you during your lifetime when you become incapacitated. In fact, when most people think about the living trust, they first think “avoid probate.” And when someone thinks about having another transact for them in the event of incapacity, they think durable power of attorney.