By Ronald C. Cantin, Attorney · LSBA #39827 · Pelican Succession Law

What you can actually DIY

Louisiana law provides a streamlined path called the Small Succession Affidavit (La. C.C.P. arts. 3431 et seq.). It is a sworn affidavit, signed by the surviving spouse and/or competent heirs, filed and recorded in the parish where the decedent was domiciled (and any parish where the decedent owned immovable property). It substitutes, in narrow circumstances, for a full judicial succession.

You can DIY a small succession affidavit when all of the following are true:

• The decedent died intestate (no will) or testate with a will admitted to probate in another state, and the decedent has been dead at least 25 years and you fit the other 25-year provision.
• The gross value of the estate located in Louisiana is $125,000 or less at the date of death.
• The heirs are clearly identified, all competent adults (or with proper representation for minors), and in agreement.
• No succession has already been opened.
• There is no will being contested.
• If there is real estate, it is being passed to identified heirs without contest, you understand that the title will still need an Affidavit of Death and Heirship and possibly a Judgment of Possession to be marketable to a future buyer, and you are willing to handle that downstream.

In practice, the affidavit is most often used for: small bank accounts, paid-off vehicles, modest personal property, a final payroll check from an employer who needs documentation to release it. For those, DIY is reasonable. The clerk of the parish has a form; the notary is locally available; the cost is filing fees plus a notary fee.

What you cannot DIY

The list of matters where DIY ranges from inadvisable to actively dangerous:

• Anything involving real estate where the heirs intend to sell or refinance. A small succession affidavit can move title on paper, but title insurers in Louisiana very frequently require a Judgment of Possession before they will insure a sale. We see this every month: DIY affidavit from 2019, family tries to sell in 2026, title insurer refuses, full judicial succession is now required — with the added cost of locating heirs who have moved.
• Contested matters. If any heir disagrees about identity, share, or the validity of the will, you need a lawyer. Period. Self-filed petitions in contested matters get dismissed.
• Multi-parish estates. Each parish where immovable property sits requires recordation. The procedure varies by parish clerk in small but consequential ways.
• Mineral interests. Louisiana’s mineral code is its own discipline. DIY almost always leaves royalty streams in suspended status because the operator cannot verify clear title chain.
• Out-of-state heirs. Coordination, notarization across state lines, and powers of attorney drift quickly outside DIY scope.
• Wills with unusual provisions: usufructs, particular legacies subject to conditions, trusts created by the will, prior-marriage children, forced heirship considerations.
• Estates with debt that needs to be cleared. Creditor notice procedures matter; a wrongly handled creditor claim can void the Judgment of Possession.
• Any succession where there is a chance you missed a forced heir. Louisiana’s forced-heirship rules (La. C.C. art. 1493) protect children under 24 and permanently incapacitated children. Missing one creates a defect that surfaces, on average, years later.

The hidden costs of DIY gone wrong

Most DIY successions don’t fail visibly. They fail invisibly, and the failure surfaces years later. We have seen, repeatedly, the following pattern:

• Title defects discovered at sale or refinance. Eight years after a DIY filing, the family lists the house. Title runs the chain, finds the succession was incomplete, refuses to insure. The family must now do a full succession — sometimes with heirs who have themselves died in the interim, requiring a second succession to clear the first.
• Missed forced heirs. A child from the decedent’s first marriage was overlooked. Years later, that child (now an adult) discovers their interest. The Judgment of Possession is partially void as to them. Litigation follows.
• Void Judgment of Possession. Because procedural requirements were not met (no creditor notice, improper service on a non-consenting heir), the judgment can be collaterally attacked. A judgment that is void cannot pass clear title.
• Missing mineral royalties. Operators suspend royalty payments when title is unclear. Decades of accumulated royalties sit in unclaimed-property at the state. We retrieve those when the succession is finally done correctly — sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars — but the family lost the time-value of that money.
• IRS step-up basis problems. A DIY succession that does not properly establish date-of-death valuation can cost heirs federal capital-gains tax when they later sell appreciated property.
• Tax sale and adjudication risk. Property in succession purgatory sometimes goes to tax sale because no one had clear authority to pay property tax in time. Recovering tax-adjudicated property is hard and expensive.

None of this is theoretical. We spend a meaningful percentage of our practice fixing DIY work, and the fixes are uniformly more expensive than doing it right the first time.

The real cost comparison

Path	Up-front cost	Risk-adjusted cost (when it fails)
DIY Small Succession Affidavit (eligible matter, no real estate)	$50 – $250 (filing + notary)	Same — if it’s truly eligible
DIY Small Succession Affidavit (with real estate, future sale)	$50 – $250	$3,500 – $8,000+ later, when title clearance is needed
DIY Petition for Possession (full succession, self-filed)	$300 – $700 (parish filing fees)	$4,000 – $12,000+ to redo if defective, plus opportunity cost
Pelican flat-fee Small Succession Affidavit	Quoted up-front (low band)	Same — we absorb scope risk
Pelican flat-fee judicial succession	Quoted up-front (standard band)	Same — clear title, correct judgment
Fixing a DIY that failed (years later)	n/a	$4,000 – $15,000+ depending on the defect

The lesson: DIY is genuinely cheap when it works. The risk-adjusted cost is the relevant comparison — what you pay if it doesn’t.

A 5-question self-check: should you get an attorney involved?

If you answer yes to any of these, you should get an attorney involved — even on what looks like a “simple” matter:

1. Does the decedent’s estate include any real estate? (House, land, camp, rental property, fractional interest in family property, mineral acreage.)
2. Did the decedent leave a will? Wills require probate. Olographic (handwritten) wills require formal proof.
3. Are there any forced heirs? Children under 24, permanently incapacitated children, anyone the decedent owed support to.
4. Is any heir out of state, unreachable, or unwilling to sign?
5. Does the estate exceed $125,000 gross value in Louisiana property?

If you answer no to all five, and the estate is genuinely just a bank account or modest personal property, you can probably DIY. If you answer yes to any of them, the calculus changes.

For the “I almost DIY’d this” client

A meaningful percentage of our clients come to us after starting a DIY succession, looking at the parish clerk’s instructions, and concluding the gap between the form and the procedure is wider than they expected. We see you. Our flat-fee model exists for exactly this client.

For a standard, uncontested Louisiana succession, Pelican’s flat fee is published, quoted in writing at consultation, and lower than the risk-adjusted cost of a DIY that turns out to need fixing. We handle drafting, parish coordination, and the Judgment of Possession. You handle the parts only you can: providing the death certificate, identifying the heirs, signing what needs signing. Most successions close in 4–12 weeks.

If after the consultation we conclude your matter genuinely is an eligible Small Succession Affidavit and you’d rather DIY it, we’ll tell you that too — and point you to the right parish clerk resources. We’d rather lose the fee than take on a matter you can handle yourself.

Frequently asked questions

Can I file the Petition for Possession myself?

You can attempt to. Louisiana parish clerks are required to accept filings from pro se litigants. But the Petition for Possession is a pleading governed by the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, and it must conform to specific requirements: capacity allegations, proper identification of heirs and their shares under intestate or testate succession, a verified Affidavit of Death and Heirship, the Detailed Descriptive List, creditor notice in appropriate cases, and proper attachments. Pro se petitions are commonly rejected for defects that are not obvious in advance, and an improperly drafted Judgment of Possession does not pass clear title.

Can a paralegal or non-attorney service do this for me?

A paralegal cannot give legal advice or represent you in a Louisiana proceeding — that’s the unauthorized practice of law (La. R.S. 37:213). Online “legal forms” services can provide template documents, but they cannot answer the questions that matter: who is an heir under your specific facts, what the will means, whether forced heirship applies, what to do about the unrecorded mineral lease. A notary public in Louisiana has limited authority to prepare certain succession documents in specific contexts, but a notary is not your representative and cannot give advice on whether DIY is appropriate.

What if I make a mistake on my DIY succession?

Depends on the mistake. Small clerical errors are correctable. Procedural defects in service or notice may be curable. But certain substantive errors — omitting an heir, mis-allocating shares, failing to satisfy forced heirship, recording a defective affidavit against title — create defects that follow the property and surface at the next transaction. Some are correctable only by reopening the succession; some require litigation to undo. A free consultation early is much cheaper than discovery years later.

How do I know if my matter qualifies for a Small Succession Affidavit?

Bring the facts to a free consultation. The eligibility criteria look simple on the surface ($125,000 gross value cap, etc.) but contain trap-doors: how to value real property, what to do with jointly-titled assets, what counts as “Louisiana property,” how the 25-year provision interacts with testate matters. We’ll walk through the test with you and tell you yes-or-no in writing. If you qualify and prefer DIY, we’ll send you off with the right form references for your parish.

What about online succession kits and downloadable forms?

Louisiana’s civil law tradition is unique among U.S. states. National form services almost universally use common-law probate templates that do not map to Louisiana succession procedure. The forms may technically be filable, but they typically miss Louisiana-specific requirements: forced heirship recitations, usufruct language, particular legacies, the Detailed Descriptive List, parish recordation requirements for immovable property. We have unwound several DIY matters that started with a downloaded common-law “probate kit.”