Divorce is one of those significant life events where you need to update your estate plan. You should revise it every year or so anyway. But births and deaths, marriages and divorce may require more significant changes.
Here are four things to consider:
- Powers of attorney
If you fall ill and cannot make decisions, your spouse would have been able to take over and make certain decisions for you. Now you definitely need both a health care power of attorney and a legal one.
- Beneficiary designations
Any assets with one of these are not affected if you change your will. Whoever you wrote down as the beneficiary gets them when you die. So if your current spouse is named, they will still get them when you die if you do not remove their name from the paperwork.
- Property
Once your divorce is complete, you need to reassess your estate to see what property you still have. An estate plan that contains the property you no longer own will only confuse and delay matters when you die.
- Beneficiaries
Deciding you no longer want to leave assets to certain people allows you to bequeath more to other people.
You might want to do some estate planning together if you have children with the person you are divorcing. For instance, you may wish to put a part of your marital assets into a trust to fund your children’s education.
Getting help to understand more about your estate planning options can help you prepare for a future changed by divorce.
