Live Oak County, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

Living trusts can be expensive and time consuming to create and are usually reserved for larger estate ($1 million or more). Wills are much easier to create and can be changed at any time. A simple will would allow you to leave the home to her. Be aware that because you aren't married, there may be tax consequences to consider with either choice. You both should also have living wills, power of attorney for health care, and power of attorney for financial matters that permit the other person to act on your behalf in emergency situations.

I think you may be better served by hiring a estates/probate attorney who can help determine what you can do in your situation. Assuming she died without a will, then you should contact a probate attorney to help recover what may be yours as part of intestacy laws in Texas.

Once a Will has been submitted for probate, it becomes a public document and can be read by anyone on the website of or requested from the local probate clerk.  You may think that your mother had no reason to leave things to someone who took care of her when you did not but she may have thought differently.  Since someone can make a Will in a "lucid moment" and a Will must be notarized with two witnesses, it would be very difficult to prove that she did not make the Will of her own accord, whatever her general condition.  In addition, undue influence must be so great as to overpower a person's normal wishes and desires.  While it is easy to imagine that someone was influenced by the care they received in their dying days, it is not so easy to imagine that a Will gifting the person who provided that care was obtained through undue influence.