Double or Triple Probates When You Own Real Estate Outside of Louisiana

I was asked yesterday by a couple, "What should we do? We have property here in Louisiana and we also own some property in Mississippi and Arkansas. What's the easiest way to get this set up?" I told them their family was facing going through six different probates to get all of that stuff transferred when you pass away because they're a married couple and there's property in three states. Anytime you own real estate in another state when you pass away your family has to hire a law firm in that state to go through the probate in that county to get that property transferred. So they were very eager to set up a trust. We can put all that property into one trust to eliminate the need for the six different probates. So owning property in another state makes it difficult to settle the estate because you have to do multiple probates and get different lawyers, different law firms, different state procedures and it takes a long time. So just be aware that if you own some real estate in different states look into what's the easiest way to set that up to make things easy for your family to get that settled. I'm Paul Rabalais and have a great day!