We strive at our office to be prompt, accurate and efficient when we are providing our Louisiana Succession legal services. I have to admit that our client services attorney, Catherine Martinez, does a whale of a job creating and processing all of our succession pleadings and other probate paperwork.
Today I received word that the judge's office rejected two of our Louisiana Succession Petitions for Possession. Just so you'll know, a petition or other court pleading can be rejected if it is not procedurally correct or for another valid reason.
In both matters, the Petition for Possession and corresponding Judgment of Possession was rejected because, as the clerk for the duty judge put it, we did not file the required, "Affidavits of Death, Domicile and Heirship."
So they rejected our documents and sent them back to us to start over. What the law clerk failed to realize was that we had filed the required Affidavits of Death, Domicile and Heirship when we filed the Petition to Probate the Will. Anybody who knows anything about Louisiana Successions would have known to look to see if these Affidavits were previously filed.
The solution has to be to either better train the clerk of court employees who are in charge of handling and processing succession pleadings, or to create a probate court which would exclusively handle succession matters. Since there would be cost and politics involved in establishing a probate court, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
While a Louisiana Succession can often times be a streamlined processing of paperwork at the proper courthouse, any number of things can and often do occur to slow down or stop the process in its tracks. The only way to completely avoid a Louisiana Succession is to make certain there are no assets titled in your name at your death which would require a Louisiana Succession - often done by creating and funding a revocable living trust.
Paul
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