A common assumption: “I have a will, so my family won’t have to go through court.” In Louisiana, that’s mostly wrong.
A will doesn’t avoid succession. It tells the court how to handle one. The estate still has to be opened, the will probated, the inventory filed. Even small estates with a clean will usually take 30 to 90 days and several hundred dollars in court costs.
What avoids succession is moving assets so they pass outside the estate.
A revocable living trust
A trust takes ownership of the asset while you’re alive. When you die, the successor trustee distributes the property under the trust’s terms without filing anything in court. Louisiana has recognized inter vivos trusts since 1964 — LSA-R.S. 9:1721 has been settled law for sixty years.
Joint accounts with right of survivorship
Bank and brokerage accounts titled JTWROS pass to the surviving owner outside the estate. The bank releases the funds on a death certificate, not a court judgment.
Beneficiary designations
Retirement accounts, life-insurance proceeds, and transfer-on-death securities pass under contract directly to the named beneficiary. The will doesn’t override the form on file with the plan administrator, even when the will is more recent.
Donations in usufruct
Many Louisiana families miss this one. You donate the naked ownership of a piece of property to your children and reserve the usufruct — the use and the fruits — for yourself. You keep the house. You keep the right to the rents. When you die, the children already own it. Nothing has to move through court.
A will catches what falls through. A real estate plan keeps the bulk of the estate out of succession entirely.
If you’re putting one together — or you’ve inherited from someone who didn’t — call the firm. We close successions across Calcasieu, Cameron, and Beauregard parishes, and we can usually tell within twenty minutes which assets need a succession and which don’t.