Updating Your Estate Plan
Your estate plan amounts to the work you put into protecting your legacy, which reflects how you will continue to help support your loved ones after you’re gone. In other words, having a well-considered estate plan in place helps to ensure that everything you’ve worked so hard to acquire will effectively and efficiently flow to your heirs according to your wishes when the time comes. If you’ve already put in the hard work and created an estate plan, you should consider yourself ahead of the game, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your estate plan isn’t static and that there may come a time when it needs to be updated. Fortunately, an experienced estate planning attorney in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, can help you with that.
Changes that Often Support Updating Your Estate Plan
It’s a good idea to revisit your estate plan with your estate planning attorney on a fairly regular basis to ensure that it continues to align with your circumstances and your wishes. There are also several basic triggers that tend to require an estate plan update.
Marriage or Divorce
Whether you marry for the first time, remarry, or divorce, any one of these serious transitions in your life is likely to warrant an estate plan update. For example, if you’ve married or remarried, you may want to add your spouse as both the executor and a beneficiary of your estate. If you’ve divorced, you’ll probably want to remove your ex as a primary beneficiary, as the executor of your estate, or as both – if they were assigned to fill both roles.
The Birth or Adoption of a Child or Grandchild
The birth or adoption of your own child or of a grandchild can also be cause for a change in your estate plan. These are prime candidates for the position of beneficiary and including them by name helps to ensure that your wishes regarding their inheritance will be upheld.
The Death of Your Spouse, of Your Executor, or of a Beneficiary
The death of your spouse – who may be the executor of your estate as well as a primary beneficiary – can lead to the need for a serious shift in your estate plan. It can also support the need to create an entirely new document that ensures there is no confusion on the matter of your wishes.
If Your Name Changes as a Result of Marriage or Divorce
If you legally change your name in response to either marriage or divorce, you’ll want to address this matter in your estate plan. A variation in your name can lead to complications and confusion over the course of time and should be dealt with early on.
If your financial condition changes substantially
If you inherit or receive by gift or other windfall, a substantial sum of money, or if your financial condition takes a turn for the worse, or if you lose a job or get a much better one, you may want to address these changes in your estate plan.
It’s Time to Consult with an Experienced Harrisburg Estate Planning Attorney
The accomplished Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, estate planning attorneys at Cunningham, Chernicoff & Warshawsky, P.C., appreciate the significance of your estate planning needs and will spare no effort in their quest to ensure that you achieve the peace of mind that comes from knowing your wishes are well represented. Learn more by contacting us online or calling us at 717-260-3527 today.