Is Your Estate Plan Outdated?
A trust or will isn’t a document you sign once and forget about. It’s built around your life at a specific moment, and life doesn’t hold still. A plan that fit perfectly five or ten years ago can quietly fall out of step with your family, your assets, or the law itself, and most people don’t find out until it’s already a problem.
The good news is that reviewing an existing plan doesn’t have to mean starting over. The new software we use can scan an existing trust or will and flag provisions that no longer hold up, whether that’s language that conflicts with a change in tax law or a plan that simply no longer reflects what you want.
Below is a checklist of the life events that most often mean it’s time to take another look.
Checklist: Is It Time to Review Your Estate Plan?
- Marriage or divorce. A new spouse, or the end of a marriage, changes who your documents should name as beneficiary, trustee, or power of attorney, and sometimes changes them all at once.
- A new child or grandchild. Whether by birth or adoption, a new family member usually needs to be added as a beneficiary and may change who you’d name as guardian for minor children.
- The death of a spouse, beneficiary, or named decision-maker. If someone named in your documents has passed away, those roles need to be reassigned.
- A significant change in net worth. Selling a business, an inheritance, or a big jump in the value of real estate or investments can change which strategies make sense and can bring you closer to the federal estate tax exemption, where more advanced planning may be worth exploring.
- Retirement. Retirement often shifts how assets are structured and how income is distributed, which can have implications for a trust that was written with your working years in mind.
- A move to a new state. Estate laws vary by state. A plan drafted somewhere else may need adjustments to work as intended where you live now.
- A change in tax law. Rules around retirement accounts, estate tax exemptions, and inherited assets shift more often than people expect. A plan written under old rules can end up conflicting with current law.
- Your children reach adulthood. Provisions written for minor children, like a guardian designation or a delayed distribution age, may need to be revisited once kids are grown.
- A named trustee, guardian, or power of attorney can no longer serve. If someone you named has become unable or unwilling to take on that role, your documents should reflect a new choice.
- A major health diagnosis. A new diagnosis, for you or a loved one, is often the moment healthcare directives and powers of attorney get the closest look.
If even one or two of these sound familiar, it’s worth having your plan reviewed. None of them mean your documents are automatically wrong, but each one is a reason to check.
What a Review Looks Like
A review doesn’t have to be complicated. If you already worked with us to build your plan, or if you’re bringing us a plan from elsewhere, we can run it through our new guided software to generate a summary of what it finds, outdated provisions, potential conflicts with current law, or details that may no longer match your wishes. From there, we sit down with you, walk through what it flagged, and update anything that needs it.
Time for a Checkup?
If any of the events above have happened since your plan was last reviewed, let’s take a look together.
Feldmeyer Financial Group provides guided estate planning services, notarization, and implementation support. To arrange a review, request a consultation or call 937-907-6501.