I was a working with a super nice gentleman yesterday, John, whose wife died several years ago. John recently remarried and he never did a succession after his first wife died. I explained to John the Louisiana rules that apply when a married person dies without a Will. Since his wife died without a will, John inherited the usufruct of his wife's half of the community property. However, when he remarried, his usufruct, or his right to use those assets, terminated. So, his children are now the owners of his wife's half of the community property since he remarried. We had a long discussion and he has a great family and great kids who are very cooperative and supportive. He is trying to sell some things that are in his wife's name but he can't because they're frozen. We have to do the succession and transfer his wife's half of everything to the children first now since he has remarried. Then the children are going to sign some paperwork donating their one-half of John and his wife's property back to John so he can own the whole thing. John also has some special requests for when he passes away about his current wife being able to live in the home. The key is that he's fortunate he has cooperative and supportive children because he would be in a bit of a bind since he remarried and he has no right to any of his wife's community property. The lesson here is to plan this stuff in advance, get the legal documents done and then when somebody passes away, make sure you do what you need to do to get things transferred.
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