Revise and Upgrade your estate plans
Estate plans are essential. Through these documents you can decides and make plans on what happens to you, your assets and also the beneficiaries of these assets. Asides creating estate plan documents such as trust, last will and testaments, advance medical directives etc. you should make plans for upgrading and revising these legal contracts and document. You can do these with the help of an estate planning attorney.
Revising your estate plans would prevent situations such as invalid Will, contest of a Will through wrong inclusions, or even make the document inappropriate for implementation. State laws usually specify what should be included in an estate document. They direct the formalities in which the estate plan documents are signed and implemented. These laws however are not made to be forever and are sometimes susceptible to changes or upgrade. Your estate plans should reflect such too. Your estate plan document should be upgrade. This would save you and your family from a whole deal of struggle and stress.
Here are some reasons why you need an upgrade on your previous estate document
The state laws changed
Laws are constantly changing. The more time has passed, the more likely laws and regulations have changed. It is best to revise your estate plan and see how the changes in the state laws as regarding the formalities, implementation or inclusions in an estate documents has affected your estate plan.
You Moved to a Different State or have properties in other state
Each state has different laws and regulations. Moving to a new state can affect your estate plan if it does not meet its requirements. This includes moving from a common law state to a community property state. Also, having assets in different states would require you keep up with revising your estate plans.
Addition and Removal of Beneficiaries
After establishing your estate plan, there may one or more beneficiaries that you want to add or delete n these documents. This may include people, charities, or organizations. This would be a good reason to bring your estate plan up to date.
Life is always changing, so it’s important to revise and keep your estate plan updated. An estate planning attorney would help you make the appropriate changes to this upgrade.
Complex family issues
You may want to Consider one or more of the following cases and see if you fit into these categories that requires that you constantly revise your estate plans; you own and manage one or more businesses, you have minor children or you don’t have any children, you have a disabled family member, or you have one or more health issues, you are married, divorced or in a second marriage etc. Also, if you just got divorced, often times in your estate plan, your former spouse is your beneficiary. You may want to change that especially if you decide to remarry. After your divorce is finalized, it is best to update your estate plan according to your circumstances.
Complex family issues make also come in the form of when there a new addition to the family. Whether it’s through a new marriage or having a new child, this would be a good reason to update your estate plan. You might want to provide for this new person in the family and give them your estate. If you remarried, you may consider making sure your children from the previous marriage or new step children are taken care of in your estate plan.
Similarly, if you have a loss in the family and they happened to be a beneficiary, then you would have to change your estate plan accordingly.
Your Assets, estate or properties changed
Assets that are volatile always undergo constant changes. Similarly when you inherit money, loose assets, or buy/sell a business, these factors cause major changes in your assets. These changes in assets may influence how you want to deal with them and ensure you revise your estate plan. You estate document such as living trust, last Will and Testament should always reflect the appropriate number of your assets and its value. This way, problems would not be encountered, during implementation of such estate plan.
Ensure you contact an estate lawyer and revise, upgrade your estate plans today.
