When a loved one passes away, one of two things usually happens to everything they left behind. If the person had a legal Estate Plan in place, their wishes will be followed and everything they left behind will be divided according to their decisions. If they did not create an Estate Plan, their property will enter probate court. In probate court, a state Judge will examine everything they left behind and determine Read More

If you own a small, family-owned business in Texas, you need to be sure to have plans in place for what might happen if an owner or partner in the business leaves the business for any reason, including death.  That is where buy-sell agreements can be of enormous benefit to family-owned businesses. Here’s more about how buy-sell agreements work and some important details to keep in mind as you begin to formulate your Read More

We want to start off this blog with a simple—yet profound—statement: not every legal dispute has to be resolved in court. Plenty of Texans are unaware of alternative dispute resolution procedures like arbitration and mediation. So, when someone buys a house in League City and runs into an issue related to the purchase contract, they believe the next step has to be litigation.  In fact, the Texas Real Estate Read More

A DBA (doing-business-as) name is something many people use for their side hustles and part-time gigs. Simply referring to your enterprise by your first and last name isn’t very exciting or memorable, so entrepreneurs choose an assumed name to help with branding.  What confuses many entrepreneurs is the difference between an assumed name/DBA and a business entity in Texas, such as a limited liability company (LLC). Read More

Trusts are popular estate planning tools. Among other things, they can allow a more strategic approach to distributing assets. For instance, instead of a minor child turning 18 and receiving her entire inheritance from a parent or grandparent, the trust can specify milestones for disbursements. The milestones could include going to college, getting married, having children, and buying a house.  Many types of Read More

As people begin going through the estate planning process, they quickly discover just how complicated it can be to pass your assets onto your loved ones when you are gone. For the extremely wealthy, it makes sense to set up various legal documents to ensure all of their assets are handled just how they want them. For the average person, however, this can be cost prohibitive or simply not worth the effort. For Read More

One of the worst-case scenarios for someone who thinks they are the rightful owner of real property or that they have the authority to sell real property is the realization they are not, in fact, the owner of the property. This presents some obvious problems, but the solution is not always so apparent. A legal proceeding that may prove useful for Texans in this situation is a quiet title action, which is actually a Read More

The only constant in life is change. There are plenty of (reasonably) foreseeable changes that substantially affect your life—marriage, children, retirement. There are also just as many unforeseen changes that warrant a second look at your estate plan. While you don’t need to make changes to your estate plan after every little change, a few events make it necessary for you and your lawyer to make sure it is Read More

Those who earn passive income from real estate investments may or may not be aware of the Series LLC (limited liability company) business structure. A Series LLC is a special type of LLC that allows LLC members to create individual series for different assets, members, liabilities, obligations, and business purposes. There is not usually a limit on the number of series.  What is an LLC? To understand the purpose and Read More

This one's for you, parents.  The time you never thought would come is fast approaching. We’re referring to that moment when you drop off your son or daughter at college and come back to an empty room at your house. We understand the emotions you’re feeling. While your adult child is no longer under your direct purview, you still want to take reasonable steps to keep him or her safe. An important component of this is Read More