Dear Mr. Premack: I have three children. One of them has been estranged for several years, and for all my efforts at help still has a terrible alcohol problem. I have reached the point where I feel that leaving any inheritance to her would just be enabling future self-abuse. She can get very antagonistic, so I want to set this up in a way that would protect the other two children from her filing a lawsuit after I die. What would work best to pass my savings (which are just under a million dollars in value)? – R.I.

There is no way to guarantee that your troubled daughter cannot stir up troubles for your other two children. She can file suit after you die if she has the slightest legal grounds to claim that something was amiss. What you need to do, then, is to structure your planning documents to anticipate and block whatever claims she may consider bringing after you die.

If you use a traditional Will, you have already accomplished a great deal to protect your other two children. The Will can clearly identify them as your sole heirs, can state that you have a third child, and can state that you have intentionally made no gift to her.

Section 58 of the Texas Probate Code expressly allows you to disinherit any heir in your Will. If you did not have a Will at all, your troubled daughter would be a legal heir to part of your estate. The act of disinheritance in your Will strips her of any claim she might make under those intestacy laws.

There is, however, one challenge to using a Will as the protection device: the Will must be admitted to probate after you die, and probate provides an accessible forum for any allegations and claims your troubled daughter might decide to raise. She would have to have very explicit grounds to prevail in a contest of your Will… but sometimes, just the threat of litigation is enough to prompt the payment of some money to a contestant, if only to avoid the hassle.

To help eliminate any attempt to contest your Will during the probate process, Texas law allows you to add an "in terrorem clause" to your Will. It essentially instructs that any person who contests the Will in an attempt to alter the distributions set out in the Will should be treated as though he/she had died before you. A person who predeceases you cannot inherit, so any claim brought by that person is void.

If you would like to avoid probate and its court procedures, you might consider using a different approach by setting up a Living Trust. One portion of the trust would contain terms very much like a Will, defining who inherits various items. It can, like a Will, instruct that no distribution will be made to your troubled daughter. Additionally, the Trust can contain an "in terrorem clause" just like a Will.

To avoid probate, the Trust would have to be fully funded – that is, you would need to transfer ownership of all your assets into the name of the Trust. When you die, the Trustee (manager) would be in charge of distributing your remaining assets to the two protected children. Unlike probate, administration of the Trust does not require a public hearing in court and does not require notification of the heirs. Thus the troubled daughter will not receive an invitation to argue about the Trust.

If a Trust seems too complex, you can try to arrange your assets with rights of survivorship or in various "pay on death" arrangements. For instance, if you have a Certificate of Deposit you can fill out a form with the bank instructing them to pay it to your two protected children when you die. They present your death certificate and the bank turns the funds over to them, which gives your troubled daughter minimal opportunity to raise objections.