Hesse3 Blythe Carns

10/06/2026

When you die, your house doesn’t automatically pass to your wife.

Texas deeds generally do not contain “rights of survivorship,” unlike your average joint checking or savings account.

In fact, the home is the number one reason I’ve had to probate estates in Texas in my career.

So when Dad dies, Mom can’t just sell the house the next day.

His half still has to pass under his Will or Texas inheritance laws, and Mom may need probate to establish clean title before she can sell it.

I break this news to widows regularly.

None of them expect it. Some don’t believe it.

“But I’ve lived here for 40 years.”

“My name is on the deed, too.”

“It’s a community property state.”

“His Will says everything goes to me.”

All of those things can be true, and there can still be a title problem to resolve.

Sometimes Mom never meets with an estate planning attorney.

She just keeps living there, believing everything is taken care of.

Then she passes, and the adult kids have to clean up title through both parents.

Not a great gift you want to leave them.

But I get it. It seems like it should be that easy.

The checking account passed without issue.

The life insurance and IRA went to Mom by beneficiary designation.

Why would the house be different?

But the house doesn’t work that way in Texas without some planning.

We often solve this with a Transfer-on-Death Deed recorded with the county before the owner dies, or by transferring the home into a Revocable Trust during life.

Lady Bird Deeds remain valid, however, despite the cute name…

I generally prefer a Transfer-on-Death Deed since Texas made that option available in 2015.

A Lady Bird Deed creates an enhanced life estate and a remainder interest.

A Transfer-on-Death Deed keeps ownership entirely with the owner during life.

The named beneficiaries receive no ownership interest until the owner dies.

If Mom wants to sell the house and move closer to the grandkids after Dad passes, some planning today can make for an easier tomorrow.

09/01/2026

Your home doesn’t automatically pass to your spouse in Texas.

Even if your Will says everything goes to your spouse.

How your home is titled matters. Here’s why.

08/25/2026

We’re hiring.

Our estate planning practice is busy and continuing to grow, and we’re looking for the right person to join our team.

We’re less concerned with finding someone who already knows estate planning than finding someone who wants to learn it and grow with a busy practice.

Legal experience is a plus, but it is not required. Some prior office or professional experience would be helpful. We’re also very open to someone looking to return to the workforce after taking time away. A gap in your résumé will not count against you.

What matters most to us is finding someone who is organized, detail-oriented, responsive, dependable, comfortable communicating with clients, and able to keep up in a fast-paced environment.

This person will work closely with our attorneys and experienced estate planning staff and have the opportunity to learn a specialized area of law from the ground up, take on increasing responsibility, and grow with the practice.

The position is based in our Plano office with a hybrid schedule available after training.

If you or someone you know might be a good fit, please send us a message, share this post with them, or email Chris directly at [email protected].

08/25/2026

Estate Planning Partner, Chris Carns, was published today by Rethinking65, a leading resource providing practical insights to financial advisors serving clients approaching and in retirement.

In “The Morbid Scavenger Hunt,” Chris explores an often-overlooked part of estate planning: making sure the people left behind can actually find the plan and understand what to do next.

Drawing from a real case involving a secret marriage, a missing estate plan, a ranch, and an unfortunately discovered journal, Chris explains why good estate planning is about more than having the right documents.

It’s also about leaving a clear roadmap for your family and professional advisors when they need it most.

Read the full article here:

Financial advisors are uniquely positioned to prevent this problem that plagues many families at this stressful time.

08/23/2026

People tend to come to us for estate planning twice in life.

The first is when they have children.

For the first time, they’re forced to think about what happens if they aren’t here.

Who raises the kids? Who manages the money? How do we make sure our wishes, rather than default laws and a court, control?

The second is when one of their parents dies.

Sometimes they come in saying, “My parents had everything perfectly organized. What do we do next?”

Many times though, they’ve just spent six months figuring out what Mom owned, where everything is, and what has to go through probate.

Both experiences tend to make people want to get their own house in order.

But there’s a problem.

Estate planning isn’t a one-time exercise.

People tend to focus on the tangible result: the documents they leave my office holding.

That’s not really the value.

The value is in the planning.

I can get you squared away today based on today’s laws, today’s assets, today’s relationships and today’s wishes.

But one or more of those things will change.

Your children grow up.

Your assets change.

You sell businesses and start new ones.

People get married and divorced.

Relationships change.

The law changes.

The people you trusted at 42 may not be the people you would choose at 62.

And a beautiful estate plan drafted twenty years ago can still end with your family in probate, or produce a result you never intended, if nobody ever looks at it again.

I’m not a document shop.

The documents simply memorialize the plan.

The real value isn’t in the documents, it’s in the planning.

08/21/2026

Nobody is entitled to an inheritance.

At least not in the way most people think.

Texas law gives a surviving spouse certain protections. Depending on the circumstances, that can include rights involving the homestead and a family allowance.

But your children?

Your siblings?

Your other natural heirs?

You generally don’t have to leave them anything.

If you die without a plan, Texas writes one for you. The intestacy statutes determine who receives your property and in what shares.

But if you actually make a plan, you get to decide.

I have wealthy clients — and some who aren’t particularly wealthy — who intentionally leave little or nothing to their children.

Sometimes they believe they’ve already given their children enough.

Sometimes they don’t want to create “trust fund babies.”

And sometimes they genuinely believe the money they spent a lifetime accumulating can do more good funding a charitable cause than sending their son to Turks and Caicos or buying him a mansion.

That’s their choice.

There is one additional consideration when intentionally disinheriting someone who otherwise expects to inherit:

Litigation.

That’s why I often use what I call the carrot-and-stick approach.

Instead of leaving the disappointed heir $1, leave them something smaller but meaningful.

That’s the carrot.

Then pair it with a properly drafted no-contest provision.

That’s the stick.

Now there’s something substantial to lose before turning disappointment into an expensive lawsuit against the estate.

You earned the money.

You get to decide where it goes.

Your heirs only get to make that decision for you when you don’t.

08/08/2026

A week after their son left for college, his parents got the call every parent fears.

He’d been in a serious car accident at Texas A&M.

He was 18.

Which meant Mom and Dad no longer automatically had the legal rights they’d had for the first 18 years of his life.

They rushed to the hospital.

Fortunately, a few weeks earlier, we had prepared three pretty boring documents for him:

A Medical Power of Attorney.
A Financial Power of Attorney.
A HIPAA Authorization.

Because those documents were already signed, they could get his medical information and help make decisions while he couldn’t.

Their son ultimately recovered.

Later, they called to tell me how grateful they were and how the plan made all the difference in one of the scariest moments in their life.

I’ve noticed that people tend to come see me at two points in life.

The first is when they have a child.

For the first time, “What happens if I die?” isn’t really about them anymore.

They want to decide who raises their child if Mom and Dad aren’t here.

The second is decades later.

A parent dies or becomes incapacitated.

Sometimes everything goes smoothly because Mom and Dad planned well.

Sometimes it’s an absolute mess because they didn’t.

Either experience tends to make estate planning suddenly feel urgent.

That’s the strange thing about this work.

We all know we should plan.

But most of us study for a test when we know it’s tomorrow.

Death and incapacity don’t give us the test date.

Estate planning really starts at 18.

Then it changes when you have children.

And it changes again as your children grow, your assets grow, your parents age, and eventually you do too.

There usually isn’t one moment when you “need” an estate plan.

There are just a lot of moments when you’ll be glad you already have one.

Call us at (972) 503-9800 or email Chris at [email protected] to get your planning in place.

07/31/2026

An 89-year-old widow looked at me today and quietly said, “I have a trust… but I don’t really know what it does.”

She wasn’t asking me to rewrite it.

She just wanted someone to explain it.

So we spent the next hour walking through her plan together. Not changing documents. Just making sure she understood what she already had.

We didn’t change a single document today.

But by the time she left, she knew exactly what her plan would do for her family.

Sometimes that’s the most valuable part of the meeting.

If you have an estate plan that’s been sitting in a drawer for years, it may be worth taking it out and making sure it still does what you think it does.

Email Chris at [email protected] to get a complimentary review and understanding of your plan.

07/29/2026

My husband just passed away, we lost half of our Social Security… and I can’t access his bank accounts.

Unfortunately, we have this conversation more often than we’d like.

Many people believe that having a Will means their family can immediately access their accounts after they pass.

That the surviving spouse has clean title to the house if the Will says everything goes to Mom.

That the son can keep running the family business without issue or delay.

In reality, a Will doesn’t avoid probate on its own.

A Will is the instruction manual. Probate is the process that gives someone the legal authority to follow it.

But it can take time, involves court oversight, and delays access to assets at the very moment a surviving spouse may need them most.

Every family deserves time to grieve—not spend those first weeks worrying about court filings and frozen accounts.

That’s why planning before a crisis matters.

Clarity creates confidence… and avoids unnecessary delays and costs along the way.

Call us at (972)503-9800 to ensure you or your surviving spouse don’t fall into this same bear trap.

07/25/2026

Most parents unintentionally leave their values out of their estate plan.

Not because they don’t have values.

Because most estate plans only answer one question:

“Who gets what?”

But one family challenged me to answer a different question:

“What behaviors do we want to encourage after we’re gone?”

So, instead of simply leaving an inheritance, we began designing a plan that reinforces the values they hope will shape their son’s future:

Matching Roth IRA contributions to encourage saving, tax planning, and investing early.

Matching savings for a down payment on a first home.

Providing a distribution for graduating from college in four years.

None of those provisions were about control.

They were about encouragement.

An inheritance can transfer wealth.

A thoughtfully designed estate plan can also reinforce the values that built it.

That’s one of the reasons I love estate planning.

Every family has different priorities.

Their estate plan should reflect them.

Give me a call at (972) 503-9800 or email me at [email protected] if you want to discuss how your plan can transmit not only your assets but your values to the next generation.