WHAT IS MORTGAGE AMORTIZATION? WHAT TO CHECK WHAT TO ASK WHY IT MATTERS Principal Application How do I designate this as a principal-only payment? Extra money saves interest only if it reduces principal Future Payment Credit Will this advance my next due date instead? A payment credited towards next months payment does not accomplish what you intended Prepayment Penalty Does my loan impose any penalty for early payment? Loan terms may vary Statement Verification Where will th

You Can Put Gold in a Trust. So Naturally, I Had Questions. Someone asked me today whether gold and silver could be put into a trust. And for once, I did not have an immediate answer. I have been asked about houses, land, bank accounts, businesses, mineral interests, family heirlooms, guns, cows, collections and all manner of property people have accumulated over a lifetime. Gold bars had somehow escaped me. So I looked. And yes. Apparently, we can put the gold in the trust.

Someone dies. Everybody is grieving. Nobody really wants to talk about deeds, bank accounts, vehicle titles, mortgage statements, or who technically owns the lawn mower now. Then somebody finds the will. And for about six glorious minutes, everyone thinks the problem has been solved. “Mama had a will.” Wonderful. I am genuinely glad Mama had a will. Unfortunately, the will does not sprout little legal legs, walk itself down to the courthouse, transfer the house, change the ve

Louisiana Justice of the Peace Court: Small Claims, Big Feelings, and the Cousin Who Still Has Your Trailer Justice of the Peace court is where Louisiana sends certain civil disputes involving $5,000 or less—because apparently the judicial system needed a designated location for unpaid invoices, missing security deposits, damaged lawn mowers, unfinished construction work, and relatives who borrowed something so long ago they now believe adverse possession applies to utility t

YOU CREATED SOMETHING. NOW HOW DO YOU KEEP PEOPLE FROM STEALING IT? Frequently Asked Questions About Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, and the Things People Swear They Own Someone creates something new—a tool, a training course, a photograph, a barbecue sauce, a business name, a construction process, a hair-extension method, a hunting product, a children’s book, or a system that somehow convinces grown adults to submit paperwork on time—and almost immediately says: “I need to

Earlier today, Tammy, my legal assistant, asked me a question I honestly could not answer off the top of my head: Does Louisiana have a Lemon Law? The answer was not immediately sitting in my brain because this is not the type of law we ordinarily practice at Hampton Law Firm. A perfectly reasonable person might hear that and say, “Okay, Judith. Then just say you don’t know and move on with your life.” That is apparently not how I operate. I had spent most of the afternoon at

For additional guidance - download our free educational resource explaining Title Insurance. Let’s make this painfully simple. You buy a house. You pay for the house. You sign approximately 47,000 pieces of paper. Somebody hands you the keys. You move in. You buy a couch. You argue with somebody about where the couch should go. It is your house. Except six months later, somebody shows up and says: “Actually, part of that house belongs to me.” Excuse me? Maybe somebody in the

If you had asked me in law school what legal issues I expected to spend my career arguing, this one would not have made the list. Murder, drug trafficking, and complicated fraud cases would have made sense. Standing in a courtroom discussing whether someone should potentially spend years at hard labor because of a Facebook account somehow escaped every criminal-law textbook I ever opened. Yet here we are. Over the past several months, I have found myself handling what I have

A defendant receives ten years in prison. The judge has barely finished speaking before somebody whispers, “That means three and a half.” Another person says, “No, violent offenders do sixty-five percent.” Somebody’s aunt says, “He has priors, so he is habitual.” Then a man who attended absolutely none of the court proceedings announces that the defendant will be home in eighteen months because his cousin had the same charge. His cousin probably did not have the same charge.

Explaining Felony Plea Forms in Louisiana If you are pleading guilty to a felony in Lincoln or Union Parish, you are going to receive a stack of papers asking you to sign, date, initial, acknowledge, waive, certify, and swear that you understand several paragraphs written by people who apparently believe ordinary English is a gateway drug. These forms matter. They are not courthouse permission slips, and your signature is not merely proof that you successfully located a pen.

Every so often, a law enforcement officer sends me a picture of a plea offer and asks me what, exactly, the prosecutor is asking them to approve. The charge usually is not the confusing part. The officer knows the charge, knows the investigation, and probably knows considerably more about where the defendant was standing at 2:17 a.m. six months ago than I ever will. "Has law enforcement approved the plea agreement?" It is also important because during almost any felony plea,

Louisiana’s Habitual Offender Law is what happens when the State looks at a person’s new felony conviction, pulls out the person’s entire criminal history like a CVS receipt, and says, “Actually, we are not finished here.” It is not a separate crime. Nobody gets arrested for “being habitual.” It is a sentencing law that allows the district attorney to ask for a much larger sentence on the new felony because the person has qualifying prior felony convictions. You may also hear

Most people do not think of Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat as part of their estate plan, which is bold considering some of us touch those apps more often than we touch our spouse, our Bible, our bank account, or the laundry we keep restarting because we are not emotionally prepared to fold it. We scroll in bed, in the bathroom, at red lights, in the school pickup line, and during conversations where we are nodding like we heard a damn word. Then we act shocked when somebody

A reverse mortgage is one of those things that sounds simple enough while everybody is alive and nobody is asking too many questions. The homeowner gets to use some of the equity in the home, there usually are not regular monthly mortgage payments, and the family quietly files the phrase “reverse mortgage” into the same mental drawer as Medicare paperwork, old insurance policies, and instruction manuals nobody has opened since 2004. Then the homeowner passes away, and suddenl

Years Later, Someone Will Still Be Reading Your Report I have worked in enough different places in the criminal justice system to understand that most people only see one small piece of it. I have been a prosecutor. I am now a public defender. I have reviewed cases to determine whether the State had enough evidence to file charges, whether the evidence could be proved at trial, whether the evidence was legally obtained, and whether the record would survive the scrutiny that c

When a loved one passes away, families are often left trying to find important information for the succession. Years ago, that information may have been stored in a filing cabinet, a desk drawer, a safe, or a folder with bank statements and insurance papers. Important records may be inside an email account, iCloud account, Google Drive, Facebook account, online banking portal, payment app, cloud storage account, or cell phone that no one can unlock. This creates a difficult a

When someone is sentenced in Louisiana criminal court, families usually hear the number first. Five years. Ten years. Twenty years. That number matters, of course, but it does not tell the entire story. The words that come after the number can change the real meaning of the sentence just as much as the number itself. One phrase families hear often is “without benefits.” It may be said quickly during a plea or sentencing hearing, almost like everyone in the courtroom already k

Louisiana’s new sentencing laws have changed how many criminal sentences may be served, especially for offenses committed on or after August 1, 2024. This FAQ explains why the date of the offense matters, how parole and good time may be affected, and why families should not rely on courthouse rumors when making decisions.

A vehicle repair problem can turn into a legal problem very quickly. Most people think they are dealing with one issue: “My car needs to be fixed.” Then the situation starts stretching out. The repair shop keeps saying they are waiting on parts, waiting on another mechanic, waiting on a diagnosis, waiting on payment, or waiting on someone else. Before the owner knows it, the vehicle has been moved to another shop, nobody is giving a straight answer, and storage fees are build

Grandparent visitation is one of those topics that can become emotional very quickly because it sits right in the middle of love, family history, parental rights, grief, conflict, and the best interest of a child. In Louisiana, grandparents may have the right to ask a court for visitation with a grandchild in certain circumstances, but that right is not automatic. The court looks at the law, the facts, the prior relationship, the parent’s rights, and most importantly, what is