Silverleaf Legal Group, PLLC

Silverleaf Legal Group, PLLC Silverleaf Legal Group, PLLC is in Cedar Park, Texas, providing representation for Estate Planning

You got the promotion.Your income is growing. Your savings are building.And somewhere in the background, an old 401(k) b...
06/17/2026

You got the promotion.
Your income is growing. Your savings are building.
And somewhere in the background, an old 401(k) beneficiary form is still listing an ex, a parent, or no one at all.
Most people set their beneficiary designations once and never look at them again.
The problem is that these designations override your will.
It does not matter what the will says.
If the beneficiary form names someone else, they receive the account.
We work with people at every income level, and this is one of the most common gaps we see.
It is not a complicated fix. But it requires actually doing it.
When did you last look at your beneficiary designations?

You paid off your student loans.That is a genuine accomplishment, and it deserves to be recognized.But it also brings up...
06/17/2026

You paid off your student loans.
That is a genuine accomplishment, and it deserves to be recognized.
But it also brings up something most people have never been told.
What actually happens to debt when you die?
The common assumption is that it disappears.
The reality is more complicated.
Federal student loans are discharged at death. Most private loans are not.
And other kinds of debt, credit cards, medical bills, car loans, follow different rules entirely.
In Texas, your estate is responsible for debts before your heirs receive anything.
If your estate does not have enough to cover what is owed, the rules around what gets paid and what does not matter.
We have seen families surprised by this at the worst possible time.
Do you know what your debt picture actually looks like, and what it would mean for the people you leave behind?

We had the baby.Those four words change everything.And somewhere in the fog of the first few weeks, there is a question ...
06/16/2026

We had the baby.
Those four words change everything.
And somewhere in the fog of the first few weeks, there is a question most new parents do not think to ask.
If something happened to both of us, who would raise our child?
Not who would want to. Not who would try.
Who would the state of Texas recognize as the legal guardian?
Without a will that names a guardian, a judge decides.
That judge will do their best. But they do not know your family.
They do not know which sibling shares your values, who lives nearby, who your child already loves.
Naming a guardian is one of the most personal decisions in estate planning.
It is also one of the most skipped.
If you have a child and no will, is that a gap you are comfortable leaving open?

We just bought our first house.That sentence carries a lot of weight.For most people, it is the first time they own some...
06/16/2026

We just bought our first house.
That sentence carries a lot of weight.
For most people, it is the first time they own something that has real legal standing.
A deed is not just a document. It is a piece of property that now exists in your name.
And that changes things.
If something happened to you tomorrow, what would happen to that house?
Who would get it? Would it go through probate? Would your partner be protected?
Most first-time buyers never think about this in the closing paperwork.
We work with a lot of people who come to us right after a major purchase.
Buying a home is one of the clearest signals that your estate plan needs to exist.
Is yours in place?

Most people think about estate planning as something that matters when they die. That is understandable. Death is the ev...
06/15/2026

Most people think about estate planning as something that matters when they die. That is understandable. Death is the event most people associate with these documents. But a significant portion of estate planning is about something else entirely. It is about what happens if you are alive but cannot make decisions for yourself. A stroke. A serious accident. A diagnosis that progresses slowly. A period of cognitive decline. In those situations a will does nothing. A will has no legal effect until death. What governs incapacity is a different set of documents entirely. A financial power of attorney. A medical power of attorney. A directive to physicians. Possibly a revocable trust with provisions for managing assets during incapacity. These documents are not optional additions to an estate plan. They are half of it. Does your plan address what happens if you need it while you are still alive?

Grandma got a phone call last week that nobody in the family was prepared for.A company was selling a patent. A big one....
06/15/2026

Grandma got a phone call last week that nobody in the family was prepared for.

A company was selling a patent. A big one. Sound equipment licensed to a major sports stadium. Shares needed to be divvied out.

And one of those shareholders had been gone for three and a half years.

Nobody in the family even knew the investment existed.

Here is where the story gets complicated. 👇

When someone passes away without an estate plan in Texas, their assets do not just automatically flow to the people who love them. The state has a process. That process is called probate. And it does not care how much time has passed, how straightforward the family seems, or how surprising the asset is.

In Texas, a will generally must be probated within four years of the date of death. Miss that window, and the will, if there even was one, cannot be used. The family falls back on whatever the Texas Estates Code says, and the court works through a legal priority list to figure out who gets what and who gets to be in charge.

Now layer on top of that an asset nobody knew about. An investment from the 1990s. A patent. Shares that were never titled into a trust, never assigned a beneficiary designation, never mentioned in any planning document, because there was no planning document.

That asset is now stuck.

Getting to it will likely require a probate proceeding, possibly an heirship determination, attorneys, court costs, and months of time before a single dollar can be distributed to the people who deserve it. 💸

And here is the part that hits hardest.

This was not a complicated situation before the phone call. It became complicated the moment it was discovered, because nothing had been done to prepare for exactly this kind of moment.

This is what attorneys who do estate planning call a sleeper asset. It is an asset that nobody thinks about day to day. Nobody needs access to it. Nobody is paying bills with it. And so it just sits there quietly, outside of any plan, until one day a phone call wakes it up.

Real estate can be a sleeper asset. Old bank accounts. Investment accounts. Mineral rights. And yes, a patent from the 1990s that nobody reme

Transferring a home to a child during your lifetime seems like a generous and practical idea. In some situations it is. ...
06/13/2026

Transferring a home to a child during your lifetime seems like a generous and practical idea. In some situations it is. In others it creates problems that take years to sort out. When a home is given as a gift the recipient inherits the original owner's cost basis. That is the price paid for the property often decades ago. When the child eventually sells they may owe capital gains tax on the difference between that original basis and the sale price. If the same home had passed at death instead the basis would step up to the fair market value at the time of death. In many cases that step-up eliminates the capital gains exposure entirely. A gift made during life can cost a family more in taxes than the probate it was meant to avoid. There are also Medicaid implications if long-term care becomes a concern. Transfers made within a certain lookback period can affect eligibility. The home is often the largest asset in an estate. How it is transferred matters enormously. Do you know what the tax consequences of your current plan actually are?

Marcus and Danielle were not wealthy. They were just responsible.He was 34. She was 32. Two kids under seven, a house wi...
06/13/2026

Marcus and Danielle were not wealthy. They were just responsible.

He was 34. She was 32. Two kids under seven, a house with a mortgage, and a combined income that felt like just enough most months.

They were not the kind of people who thought they needed a trust.

That was exactly the kind of thinking that almost cost them everything.

They came in because a friend had nudged them for two years to just go talk to an attorney. Not because anything was wrong. Just because they had kids and a house and a life insurance policy and someone finally asked them the right question.

What happens to your kids if you are both gone?

They had not really thought it through. They had a will. Sort of. Something they had downloaded and printed out years ago and never fully completed. Their life insurance named each other as beneficiary but had no backup plan if both of them were gone. No provision was made for their two kids, ages five and seven, to receive their assets without a complicated dependent probate or guardianship proceeding because nobody had told them that a minor child in Texas cannot legally receive a direct inheritance. 📋

So they got to work.

They set up a revocable living trust. Nothing flashy. Nothing complicated. It named a guardian they trusted for their kids. It held their life insurance proceeds and assets inside a structure that said, here is how this money gets used for our children while they grow up. For school. For medical needs. For the things kids need. And here is when and how they receive it as adults, not as overwhelmed teenagers handed a check at 18 with no guidance.

Then three years later, Marcus was in a serious car accident. He survived. But he was in the hospital for two weeks and unable to manage anything.

Because they had a durable financial power of attorney in place, Danielle could handle every account, every bill, every financial decision without a single court appearance. Because they had a medical power of attorney, the right people were at the table when decisions needed to be made. 🙏

Nothing went to court. Nothing got frozen. Nothing fell apart.

They were not wealthy when they built thei

You grew up watching The Lion King. You know the part.Mufasa looks down at Simba and says: "One day, all of this will be...
06/12/2026

You grew up watching The Lion King. You know the part.

Mufasa looks down at Simba and says: "One day, all of this will be yours."

You were maybe 8 years old. It felt like forever away.

Well. That generation of Mufasas? They are in their 60s and 70s now. And a lot of millennials are starting to realize that "one day" is closer than they thought. 🦁

And most of them have no idea what to do next.

If your parents are anywhere between 60 and 75 right now, this is the window. Not when something happens. Not after the diagnosis. Now, while everyone is healthy, sharp, and capable of having a real conversation.

Here is what that conversation actually needs to cover:

Do your parents have a financial power of attorney? This is the document that lets a trusted person handle their banking, their real estate, their insurance, their bills, if they ever cannot do it themselves. Without it, even their own child cannot legally step in. Not at the bank. Not at the title company. Nowhere. 📋

Do they have a medical power of attorney? This names who the doctors listen to when your parents cannot speak for themselves. If this document does not exist, the hospital may not be able to tell you anything, let alone let you make decisions.

Do they have an advanced directive? This is where your parents get to say, in writing, what they want if they are ever in a terminal condition with no hope of recovery. It is their voice, preserved, before the moment gets taken away from them.

Do you know where any of this is? The documents mean nothing if nobody can find them when it counts.

Here is the hard truth that most elder millennials are not ready to hear. The kids who grew up watching their parents be the strong ones, the providers, the ones with all the answers, are now the ones who need to start asking the questions.

That is not a small emotional shift. But it is a necessary one.

The families who have this conversation early are the ones who get to spend a crisis focused on each other instead of scrambling through paperwork, fighting with hospitals, or spending thousands of dollars in court trying to get legal authority they could have had fo

You only have to go through probate in Texas if you leave assets titled in your own name when you die.That is it.If noth...
06/11/2026

You only have to go through probate in Texas if you leave assets titled in your own name when you die.
That is it.
If nothing is left in your name when you pass away, your family may not need the probate process at all.
This sounds straightforward, but the practical question is what to do about it.
For financial accounts, most banks allow you to name a beneficiary directly on the account.
When you pass away, all your family member needs is a death certificate.
The bank already has your instructions on file.
For vehicles, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has a form that allows you to name a beneficiary for your car, which works the same way.
For real estate, Texas has a tool called a Lady Bird Deed that can be structured so the property transfers automatically to the person you choose without going through probate.
None of these are complicated.
But they require some forethought and some coordination so that the pieces match up with what you actually want to happen.
In our experience, the families who run into the most difficulty are not the ones who never did any planning.
They are the ones who did partial planning, and the pieces did not quite line up.
Is your plan coordinated, or are there gaps in how your assets are titled?

Address

2901 Caballo Ranch Boulevard , Bldg 1
Cedar Park, TX
78641

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+15123377271

Website

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