Keep Your Estate Plan Up to Date

If you already have an estate plan created, then you know why doing so is so beneficial—it gives you control over issues such as your end-of-life care, as well as what happens to your minor children and your possessions if you pass away. These are the same reasons why it’s so important to keep your estate planning in Miami, FL up to date—passing away with an outdated estate plan is only marginally better than passing away without an estate plan at all, especially if it’s been years and years since you last looked at it.

It’s a good idea to review your estate plan every year or two, just to make sure everything is written in accordance with your current preferences. But there are also some specific circumstances in which it makes sense to go through and update your estate plan. Here are a few examples:

• You moved out of the state: Estate planning laws can vary from state to state, so if you’ve recently moved to a new state, it’s a good idea to sit down with an estate planning attorney and have them look over your documents to check and see if there are any discrepancies with the laws of the new state in which you reside. A failure to update your documents for the laws of your new state could render them ineffective.
• You’ve had changing family circumstances: Any time you have major changes in your family, this could have a significant impact on your estate plans. A new addition, such as a new child or grandchild, could lead you to alter some of the stipulations of your plan. You’ll want these new family members to be explicitly named or included in your plan to avoid potential conflicts. If there is a divorce or death in your family, you’ll want to update your estate plan to ensure those people are no longer reflected in your will. You might also choose to disinherit a person who has estranged themselves from the family or is irresponsible with money.
• You have changes to your assets or debts: A significant change in your estate’s value should prompt you to review and update your estate plan as necessary. This is also true if you’ve sold off any major assets, such as real estate or a business, that would have been a major part of the estate under previous iterations of your estate plan.
• You want to change executors or trustees: You put a lot of trust and responsibility on the shoulders of your executor and your trustees. These people are tasked with implementing your vision with your estate plan and helping ensure its success. Perhaps someone else would now be a better choice, or the person you had chosen is no longer interested in or capable of handling the task previously assigned to them.

For more information about when you should update your estate plan, contact an attorney at the office of Rubén J. Padrón, PA to discuss estate planning in Miami, FL.

Categorised in: Estate Planning