Dear Mr. Premack: My wife just had her name changed in Tarrant County. We both have living wills with medical attachments, etc. Can we change our wills with just a simple codicil executed by ourselves and a notary present. Thank You. – PN You mention several legal documents: living wills, medical attachments, wills and codicils. Let’s talk first about what those are, because there is room for confusion. “Living wills” do not legally exist in Texas anymore. The phrase was used

On December 16, 2010, the “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010” was passed by the Senate and House, and the President signed the bill on December 17. There are a lot of provisions dealing with income taxes which I won’t be mentioning. Instead, this column focuses on the new estate and gift tax provisions. The federal estate tax sections in the new law include the following features: The basic exemption from estate tax will be $5 mi

Dear Mr. Premack: I have a question about the actual meaning of the law dealing with separate property of a deceased person and the surviving children. It says that the spouse inherits 1/3 “life estate” in the real property and that the children inherit the remainder of the real property, subject to the life estate. What exactly does “life estate” mean if all parties agree to sell the property? Where does the money go when it is sold? Can the spouse spend 1/3 of the proceeds,