I’m going to do a little theme this week about what your family goes through when you’re gone and your legacy. Today is about how mad, yes, mad, our probate clients can be at their loved ones, because they never got a plan in place.

"I tried to get my mom to do this, but she just never wanted to talk about it. Now we're going to have to try and raise money to pay for probate since all her accounts are frozen."

 "What do you mean I have to give half of everything to my stepkids? They didn't even talk to their dad!"

 "We had met with a lawyer, but we just thought it was too expensive at the time. And now I'm paying 3 times that much just to sort this mess out!"

 "We really thought an online Will was better than nothing, I can't believe that it's not even valid so we can't use it!"

 "I had been trying to get my husband to do this since our first child was born, but he didn't want to talk about it. I can't believe I'm in this position now to deal with all of this while I'm trying to grieve him and take care of our kids."

 "I'm angry at him for leaving us in this position!"

 "I'm frustrated that we have to go through this process!"

These are just some of the many things we hear over and over again. The sad reality is that most people die without any sort of Will or estate plan. And for many of those who do have a plan, it was done online or in as least expensive way as possible…which leads to a lot of money, time, and heartache for your family later. They’re trying to grieve and work through the tremendous loss, but instead, they’re having to jump through legal hoops, pay for an expensive probate court process, experience massive time delays, and deal with family infighting. It’s truly heartbreaking and I’m certain it’s not the type of legacy they wanted.

Do you ever think about what your legacy will be when you’re gone? When it comes to Wills, trusts, and estate planning, you hear a lot about leaving a legacy. And, sure that includes ensuring that the money and assets you’ve worked hard for will carry on to your loved ones. A legacy is also defined as the “long lasting impact of one’s life.” Maybe you haven’t thought about it that much, but that is actually the kind of legacy we see all the time in the probate biz. What your family and loved ones will go through when you pass away is part of your story, part of your legacy.

Here are some of the good stories we here when the planning was done and done right!

"My mom made this so easy."

 "I never thought this would happen so soon, but I'm so glad that we did this ahead of time."

 "We are planning a trip to Hawaii next month to scatter his ashes. Have this all planned has made it so much easier for me and the kids and we can focus on healing."

If you want your loved ones to be able to focus on their grief and not legal barriers, if don’t want your family fighting and being angry at your lack of planning, if you want a legacy that tells the story of how much you loved and cared for them, then get a thorough and comprehensive estate plan NOW by a qualified law firm…before it’s too late!

Questions? To get an estimate: https://burch-law.com/contact

Ok, I’ve been on Friends kick, but there is just so much material. Like I mentioned yesterday, I’m taking this week to discuss a special theme of how estate planning is telling your story, your legacy. The fact is, IT COULD HAPPEN to you…what do you want your story to be?

Many people put off getting a Will or estate plan because they just don’t accept the reality that anything could happen, and they think they’ll have more time. But we hear stories every day of the unexpected happening and now it’s too late.

Parents get into a car accident while running errands and now their children are in foster care while the families fight over guardianship.

 A young woman has a heart attack and now her wife is fighting with her family about whether to keep her on life support.

 A college student has to be rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy while at school and the hospital won’t tell the parents anything about her condition.

 An elderly parent falls and is nonresponsive and now her adult children can’t get her to sign any paperwork or tell them where important documents are located.

 A dad gets a cancer diagnosis and now they’re scrambling to get things put into place, but there is just no time before life-saving surgery.

These are the stories of what happens to real, everyday people who also lived as if they were immune from these realities. So if you are reading this, it means YOU still have time. What do you want your story to be?

Questions? https://burch-law.com/contact

Ok, I had this on my list to do a couple weeks ago, but this situation has popped up at least 3 times just THIS WEEK! Sometimes in the ol’ law biz, I lose sight of what is and is not common knowledge. It always shocks me when people contact us asking to get a Will, trust, or a power of attorney for a loved one who has dementia, is in hospice care, or otherwise has a mental incapacity. Therefore, they cannot communicate, express their wishes, and they definitely are not able to sign any paperwork.

The standard to be able to sign a Will in Texas versus a legal contract is a bit lower called a “lucid interval.” My go-to joke is “I’m still waiting for my first one!” (Can you hear the Burch Law office groaning after hearing that for the millionth time?) Even at that, we still get far too many folks who are just not able to understand, communicate, or sign any of these necessary legal documents.

So since this comes up so much, I have come to terms with the fact that despite what I would think, it is NOT common knowledge that all of these estate planning documents have to be signed by the person giving the power to others to act on their behalf. Not only that, but the documents have to be signed in front of witnesses or a notary or both! This is often a much bigger feat than you may realize and, unfortunately, in many cases, it is just too late.

Lesson? DO NOT WAIT! It’s like trying to put on a seatbelt while you’re in an accident or getting homeowners insurance in a hailstorm.

Questions? https://burch-law.com/contact

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do today, but I knew that it would have to be about what loved ones go through when someone passes away and what that person’s legacy means.

You see, 19 years ago today, August 24, 2004, my sweet and kind stepdad, Lee High, died suddenly and unexpectedly at 63 years old. When I got the frantic call from my mom, I was on my way home from work in Washington, DC. I had moved there for law school and I had actually just arrived back after visiting them here in Dallas, and I was thinking about moving back here, to be with them, to start my own law practice focused on Wills, estate planning, and probate. In fact, on August 23, 2004, I had my last phone call with my dad. He had gone and looked at apartments for me because he was so excited that I was thinking about coming home and he found the perfect one. The next day, he was gone. Three weeks later, I had permanently relocated back to Texas to start a whole new life under the cloud of tremendous grief. But I did move into that apartment he found. And I sit here 19 years later, still not able to hold back the pain of those days. That loss, that grief, it doesn’t go away and it doesn’t get better. You just learn to live with it. It becomes a part of your reality, part of who you are, part of your story.

I often think about one of the most impactful statements a probate client said to me once, a man who was so anguished by the loss of the love of his life, a woman who had a second chance at life after her divorce, who found this man, and with what little time they didn’t know she had left, they lived it to the fullest. He shared with me the wonderful slide show he made for her and I remember watching it alone in my office with tears streaming down my face. So many smiles, so many adventures. But at 55 years old, she was gone. We were sitting at the probate hearing and I was talking about how, as her executor, he would need to close her bank accounts, transfer her home, and cut off her credit cards. He just sat there, the pain so clearly all over his face and said to himself as much as he was saying it to me, “it feels like I’m erasing her.” I just ached for him. I’ve never forgotten the way he put it.

I think about my stepdad and how every year I remember all the things that surrounded that day. I remember when I had just visited, I walked into the house, and there was a box of my favorite cereal, Cocoa Pebbles, and he had made my favorite dessert with gooey coconut and chocolate cake…the same dessert he made the very first time we went to his house when he first started to date my mom, and I fell in love with that dessert. And with him. We all did.

I think about how much he loved the Mobil Oil Pegasus, the company he worked for and moved us all over the world, and how he had so many things that had that Pegasus on it. I look around my office and see the majority of his Pegasus stuff, because my mom gave it to me. I remember seeing the Pegasus on top of the Magnolia building downtown when I had to sit for the Texas bar exam after he died and how I felt like he was talking to me telling me everything was going to be ok. So the Pegasus became a vital part of my law practice, my new life, my reinvention. I think about my first-born daughter, Adlee, and how her name and the spelling of her name is for him, Lee. A-D-L-E-E. So sure, there are no bank accounts in his name, no home, no property, or assets. But he is far from erased.

I think about how I started a law practice focused on Wills, estate planning, and probate in the wake of his loss. And while I didn’t choose that area of law because of that experience, his loss set the tone for how I see all our clients. All our clients from 2005 all the way to now. And I want them all to know that they aren’t alone in this process, I see them, they matter, their loved ones matter. I’ve been very fortunate to find a team of people at my firm whose values and mission are the same.

So that is the Truth, the Reality, I have to share with you today. It’s very hard to have to plan for the end, but it’s coming, perhaps unexpectedly and prematurely like for my sweet probate client, or even for my own family. My greatest hope for all of you is that you see your own worth, your own value in who you are in the lives of your loved ones; and I hope you realize that you deserve a story, a legacy, that will honor your life and be a blessing to all who knew you. Thanks for listening.

Why is the Pegasus our logo: https://burch-law.com/lorie-burch-bio/why-the-pegasus/

Have you ever noticed the word “plan” in estate planning? That’s a bigger deal than you may realize, but it addresses one of the greatest DIY estate planning and cut-rate law firm risks. There’s a reason we’re called “estate planning attorneys” instead of “Mad Libs lawyers.” This is just a matter of filling in words on a form and generating a document. I will tell you, however, that some of the DIY Wills we’ve read are just as funny and make as much sense as Mad Libs. But your family won’t be laughing when they find out that you left them with a mess. You don’t need a generic form that plugs in your names. You need a strategy, a customized plan that addresses your needs and concerns. You need guidance on what makes the best executor, how many back up guardians should you have, what is a smart way to leave money to your children, how should your beneficiaries on life insurance and retirement be set up to work with your plan…the list goes on and on!

Does everyone need a Will? Maybe not, actually! I mean there’s a 99% chance they do, but the point is that there may be instances where a certain “document” isn’t needed, but a “plan” is ALWAYS needed. An example could be a young adult just starting out in life who doesn’t have more than a car and a bank account; or someone who has really simplified their lives in retirement and only has life insurance and an investment account. Now, I don’t want to get too complicated and try to make the argument that a Will would help even in those situations, such as a Will could help if the family had to bring a wrongful death claim, but we’ll let the personal injury attorneys talk to you about that!

So, what do I mean about a plan? Early in my practice I had a very sad case of a woman in her early twenties who passed away and her parents were trying to get access to one single bank account that had a few thousand dollars in it. The bank, no surprise, was requiring them to jump through all these hoops. Now, we were able to resolve this in the end without any probate court involvement, but if their daughter had simply gotten the advice on adding a “POD” (payable on death) designation on her account, this would have never happened. Did she need a Will? Not in the end, but she did need advice on how to make a plan to make things easier for her parents during the most horrible experience of their lives.

No, we aren’t Mad Lib Lawyers, we are planners and it’s why no matter how “little” you think you have, you could probably use a plan to make sure you are going to make things as easy as possible for your loved ones. This could be options on how to set up life insurance or retirement beneficiaries, how to designate bank accounts, or even how to transfer your home.

Have a DIY Will and want to see if it will work for free BEFORE it’s too late? https://burch-law.com/diy-wills/

Here’s another one that comes to us by request…family that comes out of the woodwork! We’ve seen our fair share of “interesting” claims of people once someone passes away. What are some of our favorites? Let’s do a top 5 countdown:

5. With the increased popularity of genealogy tools such as Ancestry, people are finding out about all sorts of relatives they didn’t know they had! Fun? Sure! Legal heir to your estate? You bet!

4. Common law marriage – so did grandpa let his lady friend move in after grandma died? Great! Now she won’t move out and claims they were married!

3. Adoption by estoppel. I really don’t want to elaborate, because it triggers one of our probate attorneys, but just know that people can claim they were adopted without being, well, actually adopted.

2. So you gave your child up for adoption? Well, that doesn’t mean they don’t get to claim they should inherit your estate. That’s right, unless the child’s rights to the parent are also severed (this RARELY happens), then if you gave a child up for adoption or you otherwise surrendered your parental rights, they can still claim to be your child, and thereby inherit your money and assets!

1. Brace yourself, but this is our favorite, we had a probate case involving a daughter born from a threesome. One DNA test later, yep, he’s the baby daddy and she’s now his legal heir!

So what can you do about it? Gosh, I thought by now the answer would be obvious, but you need a solid estate plan in place, and you need to make sure you close any of these legal loopholes so you ensure your estate goes to your family of choice rather than by law!

Can you disinherit your family? https://burchlaw.dubb.com/v/PXB4zk

Special Edition: Common Probate Mistakes Part III

You would think in this day and age that a copy of a Will should be as good as the original. Well, you’d think that, but you’re wrong. There’s only one original! I know that can seem like a pain, but unless the law changes, you need to take REALLY good care of your original Will. Otherwise, the probate court may treat it as revoked and it will take all sorts of hoops, time, and money to prove you didn’t revoke it. And sometimes it even requires family you decided to cut out to consent to allow the Will to be valid!

Where should you keep your Will? First, where you shouldn’t:

1. At your lawyer’s office. Now, maybe in the days of yore, this was common practice, but there are way too many issues with this to elaborate. What assurances do you have that the law firm will keep track of it if the practice closes or the attorney retires? How will the family know you have a Will and know how to contact them? What if you move? You get the idea.
2. Where else is a bad idea? The county you live in. Again, maybe in yesteryear, this was a thing. But now we find more problems than not. What if you move out of that county? What if you update your Will, are you going to remember to get the other one back? How will your family know?
3. Finally, another place I don’t recommend keeping your original Will is in a bank safety deposit box. This one may trigger some people and, hey, if you love this idea so much, then go for it. Just please make sure you ask the bank if you can add your family to have access if you die or become disabled, because they love to freeze those things and if the Will is inside, how are they going to get the authority without the Will? Also, have you heard of bank hours? I guess you had better make sure that you will only need access to your legal documents then. We actually had a client who couldn’t get access to her Will because the bank was closed indefinitely during the COVID shutdown.

We typically recommend keeping your original Will at home, preferably in a fireproof box. You should let your family or executor, if not the same, where you keep it, and you should make sure that a trusted person has access to your home for emergency access. Now your personal circumstances may dictate a different plan, which is one of the many reasons you should consult with a qualified law firm to help customize the best strategy...including where to keep your original documents!

For more tips on what to do once you have a Will: https://burchlaw.dubb.com/v/GH4jJg

Can you believe that we are almost at Day 31? I’ve got a few special things planned this week, so make sure you tune in. One of my last messages as part of this series is going to be about when to review and update your estate plan. So, you’ve listened to me…or someone else…and you actually got your Will and legal documents in place. But is it time to review and make changes? Here are some general tips on when to review or update your legal plan:

1. Review your plan at least every 2-3 years. You want to ensure that you haven’t changed your mind about executors, guardians of your kids, or maybe your kids are over 18 and don’t need guardians, or you may want to change who makes medical or financial decisions for you. There are also changes in the law that you will want to make sure you are taking advantage of, such as including “digital assets” in your Will or financial power of attorney so that your Executor or Agent can handle online accounts such as email or social media in addition to your money and stuff.
2. Have you moved out of Texas or to Texas? I am often asked whether documents from another state should be updated to Texas law. Y’all know we’re special here in Texas, don’t ya? Of course, you want to get your Will Texa-fied. While Texas does recognize Wills from other states, it will be easier for your executor to go through the probate process if your Will has language specific to Texas. Also living wills and medical and financial powers of attorney are all defined by state law, so if you want a doctor or bank to easily honor those documents, better get the Texas state seal of approval. Same goes for if you move out of Texas, but that’s obviously hypothetical, because who would ever dream of such a thing?
3. Do you have everything you need? For example, I see many online forms and even other attorneys who do not provide all the documents that may be necessary for your wishes. We recommend that in addition to your Will, you should have a living will or directive to physicians, medical power of attorney, HIPAA medical record release, financial power of attorney, declaration of guardian for yourself, and an appointment of agent to control disposition of remains. If you have kids under 18, you should also have a designation of health care agent for children so someone can make medical decisions for them in case of emergency. Your Will only covers if you pass away, but this document covers if you are in an accident, in a hospital, traveling or unavailable.

You may also want to consider updating from a Will to a revocable living trust so your family and loved ones don’t have to go through the time and expense of probate court, whereas a Will is great and essential to make things easier, it still does have to be approved by a court.

I know, I know, it’s hard to get this stuff in the first place, but it’s time to do some adulting and as life changes, this too may need to change. The last thing I will add, now listen to me VERY carefully, you need to use a qualified attorney to update your documents. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT write on your documents, or try to type it up yourself with changes. This will always fail. I promise.

When do I need to review and update my legal documents? https://burchlaw.dubb.com/v/WillTuneUp

Ok, everyone, we’re almost wrapped up here. In fact, today is going to be the last main message as Day 30 and Day 31 I have something special planned – you won’t want to miss it.

So how can I sum up the message here? When we started this journey 29 days ago, I told you it was because we have seen an increasing trend in people trying to do DIY Wills and estate planning, or taking what they think are short cuts, or just putting this off for one reason or another. We even have a number of people who take the time to contact us, meet with us, tell us they are ready to get started…only to become ghosts standing there in the room.

Here's a hard fact that I know about all the Burch Law ghosts – almost every single one of them still have NOTHING in place. No matter how well-intentioned, we know from experience that the longer they wait, the less likely this will get this done.

Nearly 70% of people do not have any plan and we’ve found that at least another 15% have a plan that won’t work, either is an online form, out of date, out of state, or they went to the cheapest law firm they can find, not knowing the time, money, and heartache they are creating for their loved ones in the end.

If you’ve been following long, then you’ve gotten a big dose of truth and reality. You have way more knowledge of what happens without a proper plan, the downside of DIY forms, what potential costs could be, and how the Texas probate system works. If you decide to do nothing with this knowledge, then I have news for you: YOU are the problem. It’s YOU.

You see, being an anti-hero is meant to be tongue in cheek and maybe, just maybe, it’s time to confront the worst version of yourself…

the one who procrastinates…

the one who thinks they can do legal planning on their own…

the one who thinks their family can just work it out…

the one who thinks it’s too expensive despite all the lesser important things you manage to find the money for…

the one who doesn’t want to face what it will do to their loved ones if they keep waiting…

the one who doesn’t see their own worth.

So my final message is this: you ARE worth it. Get this done SWIFTLY.

If you want to join our Friends of Burch Law Facebook Group for more tips and information, click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1294416854460964

It’s been a wild ride this month and I appreciate how many of you have shared, made suggestions, and reached out. I assure you that you are making a difference! So today, I want to “take that and rewind it back” meaning we want YOU to vote for your favorite(s) #31DaysOfTruthBurchLawEdition! Check out our previous posts and pick your favorites! We will discuss more tomorrow during our LIVE #31Days event!

Review and vote here: https://burch-law.com/31-days-of-truth/