Louisiana Estate Planning Blog | Alan Kansas | Gretna

The most important thing to understand is that a succession is required any time a Louisiana resident dies owning assets that need to be formally transferred — real estate, financial accounts, vehicles. Without opening a succession, real estate title cannot be cleared and financial accounts cannot legally transfer to heirs. Whether a valid will exists determines which pathway applies. A testate succession follows the will's terms; an intestate succession follows Louisiana's statutory formula. The succession is filed in the parish where the deceased was domiciled — for Jefferson Parish residents, that's the 24th JDC in Gretna.

everal Louisiana-specific considerations don't apply anywhere else. First, understand forced heirship: if you have children under 24 or permanently incapacitated children, Louisiana law protects their right to a portion of your estate regardless of your will. Second, make sure your will meets Louisiana's execution requirements — notarial form with two witnesses and a notary, or entirely handwritten olographic form. Third, if you have minor children, a tutorship designation in your will handles the long-term question of who raises them, but a separate provisional custody by mandate handles the same-day emergency. And fourth, understand usufruct: Louisiana's default rules for surviving spouses and children from prior relationships may not match what you actually want.

Louisiana operates under civil law — the only state in the country that does. That produces a set of inheritance and estate rules with no equivalent anywhere else: forced heirship, usufruct, notarial will requirements, community property, and a succession process rather than probate. Most estate planning information produced nationally doesn't account for any of these. Reading content written for Louisiana families — and working with an attorney who practices only in Louisiana — is the starting point for getting it right.

Every substantive post covering Louisiana estate planning or succession law is reviewed by Alan Kansas before it publishes. Alan is a Louisiana estate planning and succession attorney with more than 20 years of experience practicing in this state, including a litigation background that informs how he evaluates whether documents and legal explanations hold up under scrutiny. Posts that explain Louisiana-specific legal concepts are written to be accurate for Louisiana readers, not adapted from generic national content.

Yes, significantly. Louisiana is a civil law state with inheritance rules — forced heirship, usufruct, notarial will requirements — that have no equivalent anywhere else in the country. Most online tools and many general practice attorneys apply a common law framework that doesn't translate correctly here. My practice is built entirely around Louisiana law.

Most plans are complete within a few weeks from the discovery call to the signing appointment. The timeline depends on document complexity and your availability for the review stage. I give every client a realistic timeline during our first conversation.