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What Happens to Your Louisiana Property Without a Will? | RE: Real Estate Podcast
Content Type
Discussion
Primary Goal
Learn which four estate planning tools protect Louisiana family wealth and take the step that costs nothing: reviewing your beneficiary designations.
Keywords
Louisiana estate planning, Louisiana succession law, forced heirship, community property Louisiana, usufruct, South Louisiana, Houma Thibodaux, revocable living trust Louisiana, beneficiary designations, Louisiana will
Summary
Louisiana operates under civil law – making it the only state where forced heirship, usufruct, and community property all work differently than in the other 49 states. Clint and Ben break down the four tools every Louisiana family needs: a valid will, a revocable living trust, the right ownership structure, and updated beneficiary designations. A composite case study of a $2.6 million working-family estate shows what six weeks with the right attorney accomplishes – and what a lifetime of procrastination costs.
Key Topics
• Why Louisiana’s civil law is unique – and why out-of-state wills and online templates fail here
• The real cost of dying intestate: what Louisiana succession law decides for your family
• Forced heirship: when a child under 24 has a guaranteed legal share regardless of the will
• Community property and usufruct: how marriage and death interact under Louisiana law
• Tool 1: last will and testament – valid formats, common mistakes, and when to update
• Tool 2: revocable living trust – privacy, speed, and the funding mistake that kills it
• Tool 3: joint ownership structures and how Louisiana handles what other states call joint tenancy
• Tool 4: beneficiary designations – the highest-leverage, lowest-cost action anyone can take
• Case study: a $2.6M estate, five key decisions, and a six-week path to protection
• Homework: scheduling your consultation and reviewing every designation this month
Title Options
• What Happens to Your Louisiana Property Without a Will? | RE: Real Estate Podcast
• Louisiana Estate Planning: Forced Heirship, Usufruct & Wills | RE: Real Estate Podcast
• Protecting What You’ve Built in South Louisiana | RE: Real Estate Podcast
Sound Bites
“The most common estate planning mistake in this region is not updating the will when life circumstances change.”
“This is the single lowest cost, highest leverage estate planning action anyone can take.”
“A will drawn up in Texas or Florida or an online template not specific to Louisiana may not hold up here in court.”
“This level of estate planning isn’t just for the ultra wealthy – it’s for anyone with real property and family members they care about.”
“There’s no version of this where waiting another year is the right call.”
Chapters
00:00 Cold open – the stakes of dying without a plan
00:39 Episode intro and Act Four overview
04:00 The cost of dying intestate in Louisiana
06:05 The Louisiana difference: civil law, forced heirship, community property, usufruct
07:57 Four tools Louisiana families use
08:21 Tool 1: Last will and testament
10:15 Tool 2: Revocable living trust
12:09 Tool 3: Joint ownership structures
14:07 Tool 4: Beneficiary designations
15:53 Case study: the estate planning meeting
20:50 The cost of skipping the plan
22:34 Homework: what to do this month
Resources
Louisiana State Bar – Find a Lawyer: lsba.org/public/lawyerreferral.aspx
Louisiana State Bar – Find Legal Help: lsba.org/goto/FindLegalHelp
Louisiana Civil Code – Intestate Succession: legis.la.gov
Show Links
Website: rerealestatepodcast.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@REREALESTATEPODCAST
Facebook: facebook.com/rerealestatepodcast
Instagram: instagram.com/rerealestatepodcast
TikTok: tiktok.com/@rerealestatepodcast
Find every episode at rerealestatepodcast.com – subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts
Ben Harang
REALTOR® | Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners
La. License #: 36589
Mobile: 985.859.2500 | Office: 985.262.4400
ben@benharang.com | benharang.com
Clint C. Galliano
REALTOR® | Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners
La. License #: 995704723
Mobile: 985.647.4479 | SMS Hotline: (985) 200-5447
Office: 985.262.4400
clint.galliano@kw.com | SoLahomegroup.com
Creators and Guests
Host
Ben Harang
Ben Harang brings over 30 years of experience as a licensed agent and currently works with Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners. Ben’s experience includes single family residential sales, large land sales, subdivision development, building new construction residential and commercial projects and selling REO/Foreclosed properties.
What is RE: Real Estate Podcast?
Ben Harang and Clint Galliano discuss buying & selling Louisiana real estate in black & white.
Clint C. Galliano (00:00)
When you die in Louisiana without a will, the state succession law decides who inherits your property. in this region, that means family homes, camps, and mineral rights routinely go to people the deceased would never have chosen. Today, we take that decision back into your hands. This is Built To Own.
Ben Harang (00:36)
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the RE Real Estate Podcast. My name is Ben Harang and with me as usual is my cohost, Clint Galliano Clint, how you doing today?
Clint C. Galliano (00:52)
I'm doing wonderful, Ben. How you doin'?
Ben Harang (00:56)
I'm doing terrific. We don't have a summertime shower going on outside right now. That's a good thing. We might hear some boomers.
Clint C. Galliano (01:04)
Yeah, I think I think one just
passed a little bit, but it it wasn't too bad.
Ben Harang (01:10)
Yeah. So just we've said this before, but Clint and I work together we're friends and we do these podcasts about 12 miles apart. I'm in Thibodaux Clint's in Houma, Louisiana, and the wonders of technology bring us together at the same point in the same time. So it's still a little amazing to me that we can do that.
Clint, what we talking about today?
Clint C. Galliano (01:41)
All right, so Act Four opens today. Financial Freedom. The last two episodes of the season turned from building wealth to protecting it. This is this one is about protecting what you've built and passing it on. The device stick from the bundle we introduced in episode two.
This is the highest stakes and most overlooked piece of the ownership puzzle for Louisiana families specifically. Our state law is different from every other state's. Default outcomes when someone dies without a plan, otherwise known as intestate, are almost never what they would have chosen. We're going to go over why this matters more than you probably think.
The four tools Louisiana families actually use, and a composite couple sitting down with an estate planning attorney showing what the decisions look like. Neither of us is an attorney, and every action item routes to a Louisiana estate planning attorney, not an online template, not an out of state attorney, not a general practice attorney, a Louisiana estate planning attorney. And now for the disclaimer.
Before we go further, nothing in this episode is legal, tax, or financial advice. Estate planning is deeply personal and highly individualized. Every family situation is different, and Louisiana secession law is different from every other state's law. Every specific example in this episode is illustrative only. Before you act on anything you hear today, consult the Louisiana state planning attorney for your specific situation.
Consult a CPA for any tax questions. We're here to put the framework in front of you. The application is yours and your professionals. All right, Ben, now that that's out of the way, won't you take it away?
Ben Harang (03:47)
All right, so why this matters more than you think. So here's the cost of no plan. When someone dies without a will in Louisiana, they died intestate. Louisiana Intestate Succession Law kicks in. The law dictates who inherits what and what proportions and under what conditions. The deceased has zero input at that point.
Clint C. Galliano (04:18)
Good at all. Problems are practical. Property doesn't automatically transfer to the surviving spouse. And then if you've got a blended family, that creates predictable conflicts. Minor children's inheritance go through the tutorship system. Small estates get eaten by court costs and legal fees. And it's not the state being greedy, it's that the default rules are poorly matched.
To most real families.
Ben Harang (04:53)
So even when there is a will, if it isn't drafted properly under Louisiana law, it may not be valid or may not accomplish what the deceased intended. A will drawn up in Texas or Florida or an online template not specific to Louisiana may not hold up here in court.
Clint C. Galliano (05:18)
There's this term called wealth erosion, and wealth erosion at generational transitions is real. Studies suggest sixty to seventy percent of family wealth is lost by the second generation and ninety percent by the third. Some of that is spending decisions by heirs. A meaningful chunk is transition inefficiency, legal costs, forced sales, family conflict, tax exposure.
Estate planning is how you keep that number down.
Ben Harang (05:51)
So here's the Louisiana difference. Louisiana is the only state in the US that uses civil law rather than common law. That means the entire framework for what a will can do, how property can be jointly owned, and what a trust looks like, and who has claim to what upon death. All of it works differently here than in every other state.
Clint C. Galliano (06:22)
Forced heirship is something we run into in Louisiana. Louisiana still recognizes it, though in a narrower form than historically. If a child is under twenty four at the time of the parent's death or has a permanent disability, they have a guaranteed legal share of the parent's estate, regardless of what the will says. Plan around this, not through it.
Ben Harang (06:48)
Yeah. Community property. If you're married in Louisiana, the default assumption is that most property acquired during the marriage is jointly owned as community property. That affects what a spouse can devise on their own and what automatically flows to a surviving spouse. Marriage changes ownership more than most spouses realize.
Clint C. Galliano (07:17)
Usufruct. Louisiana law recognizes usufruct, essentially the right to use property without owning it. Common Louisiana structure is usufruct passes to the surviving spouse for life, then the property passes to the children on that spouse's death. That structure doesn't exist in most states, and it solves a lot of family transition problems elegantly.
Ben Harang (07:44)
Yes it does. Okay. Here are four tools that can be used. number one is the last will and testament. A will is the baseline document. It specifies who inherits what, names tutors for minor children, and appoints an executor to manage the estate through the succession process.
every adult with any assets or dependents should have a valid Louisiana will.
Clint C. Galliano (08:16)
In Louisiana, wills must follow specific formal requirements to be valid. Two main types are notarial wills. These are drafted and signed with specific formalities including witnesses and a notary, and holographic wills, entirely in the testator's handwriting and signed by them.
Get either format wrong, and the will can be easily invalidated.
Ben Harang (08:44)
All right, a will does not avoid succession, which is Louisiana's version of probate. Every will still has to go through the court process, but it directs the process, which is the difference between the family having a plan and having a fight. Timing cost of the succession vary considerably based on how well drafted the will is.
Clint C. Galliano (09:15)
The most common estate planning mistake in this region is not updating the will when life circumstances change. This can include marriage, divorce, births, deaths, property acquisitions, business ownership changes. Each of these could trigger or should trigger a will review. Don't leave a thirty year old will running your succession.
Ben Harang (09:44)
So the second document is a revocable living trust.
A revocable living trust is a legal entity you create during your lifetime. You transfer assets into the trust, but retain control as the trustee. When you die, the trust terms dictate what happens to those assets without going through the court succession process for the trust held documents.
Clint C. Galliano (10:16)
main advantages of this tool is privacy, because successions are public records, trusts generally aren't, speed, because assets transfer per trust terms without waiting for court, and costs. There's no secession costs for our trust assets. For Louisiana families with significant property, this alone can save meaningful legal fees and months of process time.
Ben Harang (10:44)
The main trade-off is the set-up complexity and cost. Trust costs more upfront than wills, and assets have to be retitled into the trust to actually work. If you don't fund the trust properly, it's an expensive piece of paper that does not do what you set it up to do.
Clint C. Galliano (11:10)
And here's Louisiana specific consideration. The Louisiana Trust Code is a different animal from common law trust doctrine. A Louisiana state planning attorney is essential. A national online trust template will not get the job done. Louisiana trusts are legitimately different from what an out-of-state attorney or online service typically produces.
Ben Harang (11:38)
All right, the third tool, joint ownership structures. How property is titled matters as much as any document you sign. The right title structure can move property to a co-owner immediately at death, avoiding succession for that specific asset entirely.
Clint C. Galliano (12:02)
in common law states. The standard joint tenancy with right of survivorship that other states use doesn't exist here in the same form. Louisiana has its own structures, and the community property regime already handles a lot of what joint tenancy handles elsewhere.
Ben Harang (12:22)
So community property between spouses is the Louisiana default. Property acquired during a marriage is typically jointly owned. Understanding what's community property, what's separate property, and how each transfer is at death is foundational to any Louisiana estate plan.
Clint C. Galliano (12:45)
A matrimonial regime modification or separation of property agreement can change the default community property rules for a specific couple. Some families do this for legitimate estate planning reasons. Talk to a Louisiana family law or estate planning attorney about whether this fits your situation. It's not a do-it-yourself decision.
Ben Harang (13:09)
The last tool, the fourth tool is the beneficiary designations. Some assets transfer at death entirely outside of your will based on a beneficiary designations you've put on the accounts. Life insurance policies, retirement accounts like 401Ks and IRAs, and transfer on death brokerage accounts all work this way.
Clint C. Galliano (13:34)
But here's the gotcha. Many people update their will meticulously and completely forget their beneficiary designations. If you named your ex spouse as a beneficiary on your four hundred one K fifteen years ago and haven't updated it, that's who gets it, regardless of what your current will says. The designation supersedes the will.
Ben Harang (13:57)
So here's the Louisiana Wrinkle. Beneficiary designations still interact with community property rules. If community earnings funded a retirement account and you designate someone other than your spouse as a beneficiary, the surviving spouse may still have a legal claim to a portion of the account. Louisiana law protects the community share.
Clint C. Galliano (14:24)
Be sure to review your beneficiary designations every three to five years, and anytime there's a major life change. Marriage, divorce, birth of a child, death of a name beneficiary, each should trigger a review. This is the single lowest cost, highest leverage estate planning action anyone can take. It costs nothing except the time to log in and update forms.
Ben Harang (14:52)
All right, so our next segment is about the estate planning meeting. So here's a hypothetical family. Married couple, both 62 years old, three adult children, two in their early 30s, one 22-year-old in college, combined estate.
Primary residents worth $475,000 with a small mortgage remaining. Three rental properties worth roughly $1.2 million with about $350,000 remaining. Mortgages across them. Retirement accounts totaling around $800,000. And life insurance policies totaling $500,000 in death benefit.
Total estate assets, approximately $2.6 million. Net equity after debt, approximately $2.2 million.
Clint C. Galliano (15:54)
Their situation is not unusual for a working family portfolio that followed something like the episode eight pattern. They're not wealthy in the sense that shows up on TV, but they've built enough that a lot can go wrong at the transition, and they've been putting off their estate planning meeting for about fifteen years.
Ben Harang (16:16)
So they finally sit down with the Louisiana State Planning Attorney. Here's what the conversation looks like. None of these decisions are recommendations for any real listener. Each one exists here to illustrate the type of question a real Louisiana State Planning Attorney will help a real family navigate.
Clint C. Galliano (16:42)
So here's the decisions. Decision one, wills or revocable living trusts. For an estate of this size with real property held in multiple locations, the attorney often recommends a revocable living trust as the primary vehicle with pour over wills as backup. The trust holds the real property. Retirement accounts and life insurance passes separately via beneficiary designations.
Ben Harang (17:10)
So the second decision is how does a 22 year old fit in? The 22 year old is under 24 at the time of drafting. If either parent dies before that child turns 24, Louisiana Forced Heirship kicks in. The child has a guaranteed portion of the estate. The plan needs to accommodate this directly rather than pretending it isn't there.
Clint C. Galliano (17:38)
Decision three usufruct or fee simple to the surviving spouse. A common Louisiana structure. Usufruct to the surviving spouse for their lifetime, then the property to the children upon that spouse's death. This lets the surviving spouse continue to live in and use the property without giving them the right to sell it or transfer it. It protects both the surviving spouse and the eventual inheritance for the children.
Ben Harang (18:08)
So here's the fourth decision to be made. How do the rentals get divided? Three rentals divided among three children sounds even, but each property has different values, different cash flows, different maintenance profiles. The attorney suggests forming an LLC to hold the rentals, then dividing the LLC membership interest instead of dividing properties. It's cleaner and more flexible.
also provides liability protection during the parents remaining lifetimes.
Clint C. Galliano (18:44)
Decision five. Beneficiary designations review. The attorney's paralegal pulls the retirement account statements and life insurance summaries. Two designations turn out to be out of date, one from before the twenty two year old was even born. Update them today. Single action alone would have caused a serious mess if either parent had died before the meeting happened.
Ben Harang (19:11)
So here's the outcome. Six weeks and roughly $6,000 $10,000 in legal fees later, the family has a revocable living trust holding real property, an LLC holding the rentals inside the trust, pour over wills, powers of attorney and advanced directives for both spouses, and updated beneficiary designations across every account.
Total transition cost at first death, dramatically lower. Family conflict potential, substantially reduced.
Clint C. Galliano (19:49)
Now compare that to the alternative, dying with the 15-year-old boilerplate will and out-of-date beneficiaries. That estate would likely go through twelve to eighteen months of contested succession cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and potentially force the sale of at least one rental property to cover the process, and create long-term family conflict that never really heals.
Ben Harang (20:16)
So here's the takeaway. This level of estate planning isn't just for the ultra wealthy. It's for anyone with real property and family members they care about. For working family estates in this range, the investment in doing it right pays off itself many times over at the transition. And the professional to talk to is Louisiana Estate Planning Attorney, not an online template.
not a general practicing attorney from out of state, not a well-meaning family member, a Louisiana estate planning attorney.
Clint C. Galliano (20:55)
Yes indeed. It's better to avoid all the the issues of not getting this done.
Ben Harang (21:02)
And I've seen it work both ways. I've seen families that are large get everything in order and there's little to no conflict. And I've seen families of two or three just go at each other's throat when it's not laid out for them.
Clint C. Galliano (21:21)
Yeah, it's absolutely the worst. you know, you you kind of see the in in conflicted situations like that, that's where you see humanity at its worst.
All right, guess what time it is?
Ben Harang (21:37)
I'm not doing it, Clint.
Clint C. Galliano (21:41)
All right.
Ben Harang (21:40)
you
Clint C. Galliano (21:42)
So here's your homework. Not you, Ben. It's our listeners.
Ben Harang (21:45)
you
Clint C. Galliano (21:47)
Which is possibly the most important homework we've given in this entire series. First, if you don't have an estate plan, I've been planning for five years to sit down with an estate planning attorney and I still haven't done it yet. But it's close to the top of my to-do list. So I'll I'll just share that with y'all. so again, this this is
Your your first homework, if you don't have a plan, schedule an initial consultation with a Louisiana estate planning attorney this month. Not this year, this month. I'm talking to myself here. Louisiana State
Ben Harang (22:28)
Thank
Clint C. Galliano (22:30)
Bar Association has a directory. Ask any real estate agent you know for a referral. They work with estate planning attorneys regularly and have names. Many attorneys offer initial consultations at no cost.
There's no version of this where waiting another year is the right call. Second, if you have an existing estate plan, pull the documents, read them. When was the last time they were reviewed? If it's been more than five years, or if there's been any type of major life changes, marriage, divorce, death, birth, significant asset changes, schedule a review. And regardless of the plan's age,
Pull the beneficiary designations on every retirement account and every life insurance policy. Verify they match your current wishes. This costs nothing except the time to log in. In both cases, the professional to talk to is a Louisiana Estate Planning Attorney, not an out-of-state attorney, not an online service, not a general practitioner, a Louisiana estate planning attorney. All right, that is the whole homework.
Ben Harang (23:42)
Alright, so that's episode number nine of Built to Own Next week is our series finale, episode 10.
We bring the whole thing together from the mindset that opened the series to the bundle of sticks to how you get into ownership, to how ownership compounds, to portfolio building, to today's estate planning discussion. Next week, we synthesize all of it into what financial freedom through property actually looks like. You don't want to miss it.
Clint C. Galliano (24:20)
Share this episode with anyone in your life who's built anything worth passing on. Estate planning is the piece of the ownership puzzle that gets put off the most, and it matters the most. If you're a listener with an aging parent who's been putting this off, this episode's for them too. And remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so next week's finale lands automatically.
Ben Harang (24:47)
So every episode is on rerealestatepodcast.com, whether you consume it through YouTube, audio, whether it's Spotify or iHeart or whoever you get your podcast from, we're there. Take a listen, share it. Hopefully you get something out of it. All right. I think we're done, Clint.
Nine out of ten in a can.
Clint C. Galliano (25:18)
Yes indeed. All right, Ben. Thank you.
Ben Harang (25:23)
Have a good one, See you later.