Start Anew, Update Your Estate Plan

There’s one New Year’s resolution you should definitely make and keep: updating your estate plan. With each year comes new considerations, and your estate plan should reflect these. You might be tempted to put off your estate plan updates, but you never know what will happen. It’s better to be safe than sorry, as the old saying goes.

Here are some examples of life changes and how you may want to update your estate plan to reflect them.

New Year, New Beneficiaries

Has there been a new baby in the family? Have you recently stumbled upon a new charity to which you want to donate? In order to do so, you will need to update your estate plan. This way, after you pass on, your assets will be transferred where you want them, including to the new beneficiary.

It’s important to get started on this now and updating your estate plan to reflect the new individual. People come and go in our lives, and you don’t want to miss your opportunity to include who you want in your postmortem plans.

Rethinking Guardianship

If you have minor children, you’ve likely included a guardianship instrument in your estate plan that designates who will be the legal guardian of your kids in the event of something happening to you. If you’re still happy with the legal guardian you’ve chosen, that’s great. However, if you are not, you don’t want to wait to have that switched.

Things happen, and if you have reason to doubt the competency of the guardian you’ve chosen for your kids, you do not want to take a chance and put off updating it. Worst case scenario, something happens and your kids are left with someone who cannot take care of them. If you have doubts about your chosen guardian, make sure to update your estate plan.

Family Feuding

Similarly, there may have been other developments in your family that warrant you rethinking your estate plan. Divorce is an example. You will want to make sure that the estate plan does not include your ex-spouse (or the ex-spouse of another family member), if you do not want it to. Also, if you feel like you want to disinherit someone, that is another reason to update your estate plan.

It is best to think of the estate plan as a living document. It reflects changes in your family; it is not stagnant, nor should it be treated as such. Families have their own feuds and fighting. An estate plan needs to keep up with the dynamics, if need be.

The Imminent Arrival of the 2018 Tax Code

The 2018 tax code is bringing some new changes with it. And by “some,” we mean a lot. Two of these changes have to do with the estate and gift taxes. By 2024, there will be no estate tax. But, for now, if your estate is under $22.4 million as a married couple, you get an exemption. And, since the estate tax is often unified with the gift tax, that further extends the exemption on money you can give away. This new update is another reason you will likely want to look at your estate plan.

New year, new updates! Consult your estate planner to make sure that your plans reflect any changes in your life during the past year.