Cactus, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

If your Dad had a will and it named you as the Executor then the court will likely honor those wishes and you will just have to hire local counsel and realtors etc.

Yes. You can set up multiple living trusts. However, what I have done in the past is to set up one living trust, and then have multiple irrevocable sub trusts. Each sub trust provides that upon a sale of the asset (i.e. real property) that the trust owns, unless a 1031 exchange occurs, the Irrevocable sub trust is terminated. The sole beneficiary of the irrevocable sub trust is the primary revocable living trust. If you (i.e. the trustee) want to buy one or more other properties, you just create a new irrevocable sub trust. I first began using this method with a client who owned multiple preschools, and the real property upon which they were located. Even with insurance, there is substantial risk of liability based upon the acts of employees, or just rumors about the school. In the 1980's commercial trustees lobbied for changes in the liability of trustees of California trust estates following changes in the law that required remediation of contaminated real property in California. Commercial trustees found themselves with unlimited liability when they merely held title to a parcel of real property that had been leased to a company that caused the contamination, or upon which contamination had migrated. There were others who were responsible for the contamination, but in many cases the companies not longer existed or did not have the resources to perform the remediation and filed bankruptcy.

Please take whatever documents you have to a probate lawyer (preferrably one who does fiduciary litigtion) who practices in the county in which the people died.  Please also note that the Texas Estates Code now permits an heir or beneficiary or someone who can convince the Court that they are interested in someone's well-being to ask the Court to look into the actions of an agent under a Durable Power of Attorney.