Our friends at Ellen Williamson Law, PC discuss how an estate plan isn’t a document to write once and forget about. It’s built around a snapshot of a person’s life — their family, their assets, their wishes — at a specific moment in time. When that snapshot changes, the plan needs to change with it. Here are five of the most common life events that should trigger a review. If major changes have occurred in your family, finances, or personal circumstances, an estate planning lawyer can help you review your plan and determine whether updates are needed.
1. Marriage or Divorce
Marriage often changes what someone wants their estate plan to accomplish, from who inherits assets to who’s named to make decisions on their behalf. Divorce raises the stakes even further: an outdated plan may still name a former spouse as executor, beneficiary, or agent under a power of attorney, simply because no one went back to update it. In many cases, this means actively removing a former spouse from documents where they no longer belong — an estate plan doesn’t update itself just because a marriage ended.
2. The Birth or Adoption of a Child
Welcoming a child changes the stakes of estate planning considerably. This is when naming a guardian becomes essential — without one specified, a court decides who raises a minor child if both parents are unable to. It’s also a natural point to think about how and when a child should inherit, rather than assuming a lump sum at eighteen is the right approach for every family.
3. The Death of a Beneficiary, Executor, or Agent
If someone named in a will or other planning document passes away, the plan should be revisited — not just to remove that person, but to make sure the backup choices still make sense. A plan that named a spouse as executor and a since-deceased parent as the backup, for example, may have no clear next-in-line at all.
4. A Significant Change in Assets
Buying a home, starting a business, receiving an inheritance, or a major shift in retirement savings can all change what an estate plan needs to account for. A plan built around a modest set of assets may not adequately address a more complex estate, and assets acquired after the plan was created won’t automatically be covered unless the plan (or beneficiary designations) are updated to include them.
5. Moving to a New State
Estate planning laws vary from state to state, and a plan drafted under one state’s laws doesn’t always translate cleanly to another. This is especially true for anything involving property, marital property rules, or the specific formalities required for a valid will. A move is a good prompt to have an existing plan reviewed to make sure it still holds up under local law.
Why “Set It and Forget It” Doesn’t Work
None of these life events are unusual — most people will experience at least a few of them. The risk isn’t having an outdated plan; it’s not realizing the plan is outdated until it’s too late to fix. A plan that reflected someone’s wishes accurately five or ten years ago may no longer reflect their family, their assets, or their intentions today.
A good general habit is to revisit an estate plan every few years even without a major life event, and immediately after any of the five above. It’s a far smaller task to update an existing plan than to unwind the consequences of one that no longer matches reality.