Children Donating Back to Surviving Spouse

Several times over the years I've worked with a family and here's what happened. Let's say mom died and mom didn't have a will and dad inherited the usufruct of mom's half of the community property. The children were named naked owners. So the children will come in years later and say "When mom died we just signed all of the paperwork so that dad could have everything." So even though the children were entitled to inherit this naked ownership, they did the paperwork in a way that they just gave it all back to dad and now dad owns everything. Well then dad, maybe he remarried, and he writes a will providing for his next spouse and the children are saying "Well wait a second. I inherited my mother's half of everything. At least I get that." We have to tell them no, when mom died and you gave everything back to dad he can now do whatever he wants to with it. You gave up all of your rights and your mother's inheritance. So children need to be aware that when the first spouse dies you want to make things easy for the surviving spouse. You want to give it all back to your dad or mom. But be aware that life changes, circumstances change and that surviving spouse really has complete control over where it goes when the surviving spouse dies. So know your rights, know what may happen in the future before you start signing off on documents after a family member dies. All those things that you sign have consequences in the future. If you have questions about settling a succession or an estate settlement in Louisiana feel free to give our office a call. We do successions all over the state, all 64 parishes. Our number is 866-491-3884. Have a good day!