Estate Planning Attorney in Houston, Texas

Quick Answer

There is no one-size-fits-all solution in estate planning. You need a Houston estate planning lawyer who will listen to your unique needs, goals, and circumstances, then tailor an estate plan to help you protect your family and preserve your legacy, providing you peace of mind.

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Estate Planning in Houston, Texas

Most Houston families don’t think about estate planning until they have watched a friend’s family fall apart over a parent’s estate, or until they have seen what happens to a small business when the owner dies without a plan, or until a doctor says the word “dementia” out loud for the first time.

That’s the moment the question changes. It stops being do we need a plan? and starts being how do we keep what we built from being lost or fought over?

Your Legacy Legal Care® has been answering that question for Houston families for over 20 years. We’re the firm Houston Chronicle readers voted Best Trust & Estate Law Firm. Attorney Kim Hegwood founded the firm to deliver estate planning the way she wished her own family’s plan had been built — proactive, in plain language, with the same team standing by years later when the plan actually has to do its job.

We work with first-time planners, blended families, business owners, parents of children with special needs, and families staring down a dementia diagnosis. We design plans that hold up against what actually happens — not just what the textbook says might happen.

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Average Cost of an Estate Planning Attorney in Houston

A simple Texas will package — wills for a married couple, durable powers of attorney, medical powers of attorney, HIPAA authorizations, and Directives to Physicians — typically runs $1,500 to $3,500 in flat fees at a Houston estate planning firm.

A revocable living trust-based plan, which is the right structure for most Houston families with real estate, retirement accounts above $500,000, business interests, blended families, or beneficiaries with special needs, runs $3,500 to $7,500 for a couple. Plans that include irrevocable trusts, Medicaid asset protection trusts, domestic asset protection trusts, or business succession structures run higher and are quoted based on the specific work required.

What’s not in those numbers: hourly billing, surprise invoices, charges per phone call. Our firm quotes a flat fee in writing for the entire estate plan before drafting begins. The price is the price.

What is the Average Cost of Estate Planning in Texas?

Statewide, Texans pay roughly $300 for a basic online will, $1,000 to $3,500 for an attorney-drafted will package, and $3,500 to $10,000 for a complete trust-based plan. The wide range reflects what’s actually being purchased — a single document that might be valid in court vs. a coordinated plan that’s been integrated with the family’s real assets and tested against the situations that are actually likely to come up.

The cost of the wrong estate plan is rarely measured in legal fees. It’s measured in probate that didn’t have to happen, Medicaid spend-down that could have been avoided, family fights over what the deceased “really wanted,” and inheritance lost to taxes that were optimizable. Those costs run from tens of thousands to several multiples of the original estate.

What is the 5 and 5 Rule in Estate Planning?

The 5 and 5 rule is a tax provision that allows a trust beneficiary to withdraw the greater of $5,000 or 5% of the trust principal each year without having the unexercised withdrawal right treated as a taxable gift back into the trust. It’s a planning tool used to give beneficiaries some access to trust assets without triggering the gift tax consequences that would normally come with a general power of appointment. Most family trust plans we draft for Houston clients use it (or a related Crummey power) when the situation warrants. Whether your plan needs it is a conversation to have with the attorney drafting the trust.

Houston — Main Office

• Address:1150 Clear Lake City Blvd., Suite 100 Houston, TX 77062
• Hours: M-F 9:00 A.M.-5 P.M.
• Phone:(281) 218-0880

Katy

• Address:10810 Katy Fwy #102, Houston, TX 77043
• Hours: M-F 9:00 A.M.-5 P.M.
• Phone:(281) 218-0880

Bay City

• Address:2232 Avenue G Ste 100, Bay City, TX 77414
• Hours: M-F 9:00 A.M.-5 P.M.
• Phone:(281) 218-0880

Sugar Land

• Address:120 Eldridge Rd Ste A, Sugar Land, TX 77478
• Hours: M-F 9:00 A.M.-5 P.M.
• Phone:(281) 218-0880

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Estate Planning

The mistakes we see most often in Houston estate plans:

The plan was signed, but the assets were never moved into it. A revocable living trust that doesn’t own the family home is no better than no trust at all — the home still goes through probate. Trust funding is part of the work. We do it as part of the engagement.

The beneficiary designations contradict the will. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities pass by beneficiary designation regardless of what the will says. A will that leaves “everything equally to my three children” while the IRA names only the oldest child as beneficiary is going to do exactly the opposite of what the family expected.

The estate plan is more than five years old and predates a major life event. A divorce, remarriage, child, grandchild, business sale, move to Texas, or significant change in net worth means the plan should be reviewed.

The chosen executor or trustee is wrong for the job. Naming the oldest child by default, instead of the most capable one, creates more family conflict than almost any other estate planning decision.

The plan addresses death but not incapacity. Most Texans will spend years in declining health before they die. A plan without functional powers of attorney, a medical directive, and a designated guardian forces the family into court for guardianship at the worst possible time.

The plan was downloaded from the internet and never reviewed. Online forms are sometimes valid in Texas. They are almost never integrated, and integration is what makes an estate plan work.

The family was never told the plan exists. A flawless plan in a drawer that nobody knows about does nothing. Part of the work is communicating the plan to the people who will execute it.

What an Estate Plan Actually Includes

A real Texas estate plan is a coordinated set of documents and structures — not a single will. The right combination depends on your family, your assets, your tax exposure, and what you want to happen if you become incapacitated, die, or both. Most of the plans we draft for Houston families include some combination of the following.

The last will and testament governs distribution of the assets that pass through probate. Even families with a living trust need a will — typically a “pour-over will” that catches anything that wasn’t moved into the trust during the client’s lifetime.

A revocable living trust holds the family’s major assets — the home, the brokerage accounts, the business interests — and allows them to transfer at death without probate. The grantor remains in control during life and can change or revoke the trust at any time. For Houston families with real estate or out-of-state property, a properly funded living trust is usually the single most cost-effective document in the plan.

Durable financial power of attorney authorizes someone to handle financial decisions if you become incapacitated.

Medical power of attorney, HIPAA authorization, and Directive to Physicians govern health care decisions and end-of-life care when you can’t speak for yourself.

Declaration of Guardian for Yourself in Advance of Need names who you want appointed as guardian if guardianship ever becomes necessary, and just as importantly, names who you specifically do not want.

Declaration of Guardian for Children for parents of minors, naming who would raise the children if both parents died.

Beneficiary designation review and update — retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, transfer-on-death deeds, and payable-on-death accounts all pass outside the will and need to be reviewed against the rest of the plan.

Trust funding — the actual work of retitling the home, transferring brokerage accounts, updating beneficiary designations, and getting the trust ready to do its job. This is the step most online plans skip and most law firms charge extra for. We include it.

For families with greater complexity, the plan may also include irrevocable trusts for asset protection, tax minimization, or Medicaid planning; generation-skipping trusts for multigenerational wealth transfer; special needs trusts for disabled beneficiaries; Medicaid asset protection trusts for long-term care planning; business succession structures for owners; and estate tax planning for clients approaching or exceeding the federal exemption.

When You Need an Estate Plan

The textbook answer is “as soon as you turn 18.” The real-world answer is whichever of these comes first: you bought a house, you got married, you had a child, you started a business, you reached age 50, you received a diagnosis you weren’t expecting, or you watched another family go through a probate or guardianship that made you say I’m not letting that happen to mine.

Most Houston clients who finally engage a firm to do this work have been thinking about it for two to five years before they did anything. The plan they put in place is almost always less expensive — and far less stressful — than the situation they were trying to avoid.

What Sets Our Houston Estate Planning Practice Apart

We are only an estate planning, elder law, and probate firm. That’s the whole practice. We don’t do personal injury, family law, criminal defense, or business litigation. Estate planning isn’t a side practice for us, and the lawyers drafting your plan aren’t going to be pulled away to handle a car accident case.

That focus shows up in three places:

1. The plans we produce are integrated, not assembled. A will that contradicts a beneficiary designation is a common DIY problem and an embarrassingly common law-firm problem. We build the plan as one system, and we do the funding work that ties it together.
2. We plan for what actually happens. Most estate planning deals with what happens at death. Half of what we do deals with what happens between now and death — the Medicaid years, the dementia years, the years when a power of attorney decides whether your family is in a hospital waiting room or a courtroom. Kim Hegwood is a Certified Dementia Practitioner for that reason.
3. The team here has walked this road personally. Caregivers. Parents of children with special needs. Adults who watched their own parents go through probate without a plan. That experience changes how we explain things, how we pace conversations, and how we draft documents — because we know what works when the family is actually using them.

The firm operates from five offices across Greater Houston: Clear Lake, the Galleria, Katy, Bay City, and Sugar Land, and serves clients across Texas. We won the Houston Chronicle’s Best Trust & Estate Law Firm award. Most plans are quoted as a flat fee, in writing, before the engagement begins.

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Five offices serving the Greater Houston area and clients across Texas.

Houston Estate Planning FAQ

What Is Estate Planning?

Estate planning is the legal process of arranging in advance what happens to your assets, your medical care, and the care of your dependents if you become incapacitated or die. A complete plan covers both incapacity and death, names the people who will act on your behalf, and is structured to minimize taxes, probate, and family conflict.

How Much Does Estate Planning Cost in Texas?

A basic will package costs $1,500 to $3,500 for a Texas couple. A trust-based plan costs $3,500 to $7,500. Plans involving Medicaid planning, asset protection, business succession, or estate tax minimization are quoted based on the specific structures required. Our firm quotes a flat fee in writing before drafting begins.

Do I Need a Will or a Living Trust in Texas?

Most Houston families with real estate, retirement accounts above $500,000, blended families, business interests, beneficiaries with special needs, or out-of-state property benefit from a revocable living trust — primarily because the trust avoids probate. Families with simpler situations may be well served by a will-based plan. The choice should be made with an attorney based on the actual facts of your situation, not based on which option costs less to draft.

How Often Should I Update My Estate Plan?

Review every three to five years, and after any major life event — marriage, divorce, birth or death of a beneficiary, significant change in net worth, sale of a business, move to a different state, change in tax law, or diagnosis of a serious illness. Most Texans don’t update often enough; many of the contested estates we see in Houston probate court involve plans that hadn’t been touched in 15 to 20 years.

What Happens If I Die Without an Estate Plan in Texas?

Your assets pass under the Texas intestacy statutes, which divide property based on family relationships at the time of death — and which often produce results the deceased would not have wanted. The state names a guardian for your minor children. Probate is required and typically takes longer and costs more than it would have under a planned estate. There is no opportunity for tax planning, asset protection, or care planning. Your family figures it out without your guidance.

Will My Family Have to Pay Texas Estate Tax?

Texas has no state estate tax or inheritance tax. The federal estate tax applies only to estates above the federal exemption — $15 million per individual or $30 million per married couple effective January 1, 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, indexed for inflation thereafter. For families approaching or above the exemption, estate tax planning is a key part of the work. For families well below it, the focus shifts to income tax minimization for the next generation and Medicaid planning.

Can I Do My Own Estate Plan With an Online Service?

You can. Whether you should depends on your situation. Online wills are often technically valid in Texas. They are almost never integrated with beneficiary designations, real estate titling, retirement accounts, or business interests — and the integration is most of what makes an estate plan actually work when it’s needed. The families we see most regretting a DIY plan are not the ones whose documents were invalid, but the ones whose documents were valid but didn’t actually accomplish what the family thought they accomplished.

Where Should I Store My Estate Planning Documents?

Originals belong in a fireproof safe at home, not in a safety deposit box (which can be inaccessible at death until probate is opened). Copies should go to your executor, your trustee, the agents named under your powers of attorney, and your physician. The hospital can’t honor a medical power of attorney they don’t know exists.