The Freedom of Disposition & Your Family

This guest post is from Regent Law 2L Elijah Oser:

At the core of end-of-life planning is the fundamental and constitutional right for people to distribute their property – or not distribute their property – as they wish. However, Louisiana places a limit on this freedom of disposition. Louisiana citizens cannot disinherit their children until they reach the age of twenty-four. While the reason for this limitation appears to be the protection of minor children, it has the ability to disregard the true intent of the testator.

Otherwise, there are extremely few exceptions to this limitation. A testator in Louisiana may include a provision that calls for a child to be disinherited upon his or her twenty-fourth birthday due to a specific reason, but if the testator dies before that age is reached, it is likely that his or her intent will not be given deference in the courts. Because of the American notion of freedom of disposition, it seems Louisiana may want to fall in line with every other state and allow the disinheritance of children of all ages for any reason.

For now, however, Louisiana stands alone in its statutory position to require protection of minor children from disinheritance, restricting the freedom of disposition, in efforts to protect the family.