Your estate plans, including your will and all powers of attorney documents, are living documents. This means that, as long as you are alive, they should be regularly updated to reflect where you are in your life. Depending on your needs and changes to your life, you can update your estate plan annually or every 3-5 years. What circumstances make an update prudent?
Major Life Events
Significant life events are the perfect time to review your estate plan and add or remove beneficiaries. What could be considered major life events?
- The birth of a child or grandchild
- A child or grandchild turning 18
- A death or change in financial or life circumstances for a named guardian of your children
- Changes in dependents, like a new child or an adult you care for
- A change in your financial goals or the financial priorities of your spouse or children
- Marriage or divorce
- Health challenges, illness or disability of a spouse or child
- Change in life or long-term care insurance
- Purchasing a large asset, like a home
- Rise or decline in the value of assets, like stocks or investments
- Career changes, like starting or selling a business, starting a new job or receiving a significant promotion
By making a habit of regularly revisiting your plans, you can ensure that you never forget to review your estate plan and end up with plans that don’t reflect your wishes.
What If You Don’t Have a Major Life Event?
If you haven’t had any significant changes to your life, your assets or your beneficiaries, you should review your estate plan every 3-5 years. In this review, you can sit down with your lawyer at Mobley and Brown, LLP to review all of your goals and objectives and ensure that your plans reflect them. We can assist you in reviewing the titles on your assets, the beneficiaries for your assets and your power of attorney plans. This also allows us to make changes to your executor, guardians, order of trustees, beneficiaries and more. By staying on top of your estate plans, you can rest assured your intentions will be carried out when you are unable to do so.
Contact Mobley & Brown, LLP to Review Your Estate Plan
If you are preparing to sign a contract or looking to file suit when you are bound by an arbitration clause, contact Mobley and Brown, LLP today. Our experienced legal team will work with you to meet your needs. Call us now at (410) 385-0398.
