Wealth Planning Law Group is a New Orleans law firm handling estate planning, tax, asset protection and business succession for owners of operating businesses in Louisiana and across the country, including Covington, Mandeville, and Slidell.
Much of what governs your estate is federal law. Living on the North Shore instead of in New Orleans proper doesn’t change the tax code or the trust options available to you, it changes who’s local enough to build the plan and keep it maintained.
The fundamentals, built for a business owner
Wills and the limits of a will alone
A will directs where your assets go and names a guardian for minor children, but it does not avoid probate and it does not protect anything from a lawsuit, a divorce, or a creditor. For a business owner, a will by itself is rarely the whole plan, it’s the floor, not the structure.
Trusts
Revocable living trusts keep assets out of probate and stay adjustable during your life. Irrevocable trusts do more, moving assets outside your taxable estate and, done correctly, outside the reach of a future lawsuit or judgment. Which one fits depends on whether the goal is convenience, tax reduction, or protection from a claim that hasn’t happened yet.
Powers of attorney and health care directives
A financial power of attorney lets someone you choose handle your accounts and your business if you can’t. A health care directive does the same for medical decisions. Without either, a family on the North Shore facing a sudden incapacity is looking at a Louisiana court proceeding instead of a document that was already signed.
When you’ve personally guaranteed a loan or a lease
If you’ve signed a personal guarantee on a business loan, an equipment lease, or a commercial lease, your personal assets are exposed to that debt the same way they’d be exposed to a lawsuit, the guarantee waives the liability protection the business entity was supposed to give you (how to avoid piercing the corporate veil). This comes up constantly for North Shore business owners who financed growth with their own signature, and it’s one of the more overlooked gaps we find when we review an existing plan: the business is structured correctly, but the guarantee sitting behind it was never accounted for.
The fix isn’t to stop signing guarantees, lenders usually require them. It’s to structure what’s outside the guarantee’s reach before you sign one, not after a claim shows up.
Asset protection is a “before,” not an “after”
Louisiana law gives real protection to assets that are structured correctly ahead of time, homestead exemptions, retirement accounts, certain trusts, properly maintained business entities. It gives almost none to assets moved after a claim already exists; that’s a fraudulent transfer, and it can undo the protection entirely. The plan has to be in place before you need it, which is also why “I’ll deal with it when something happens” is the one approach that doesn’t work.
How the work actually happens
The fee is set before the work starts. In 32 years, Todd has not sent an hourly bill, and the first consultation is free. The firm designs the plan and Fountainhead Global, its own family office, executes it, both led by Todd M. Villarrubia, with the legal fee fixed before the work starts, so the structure and the accounts behind it stay in sync long after the signing meeting.
