Reasons to Update Estate Planning Documents
Reasons to update estate planning documents include the following:
- There is a birth or death in the family.
- A family member marries or divorces.
- You are getting married or divorced or have married or divorced since you signed your most recent estate planning documents.
- A beneficiary or fiduciary (e.g., agent, guardian, personal representative, or trustee) named in your estate planning documents dies or become incapacitated.
- You wish to change the agents under your medical or property powers of attorney, the guardian of your minor children, the personal representative of your estate, or the trustee of trusts under your Will or revocable trust.
- You wish to change the distribution of your estate or the beneficiaries of your life insurance or retirement benefits.
- You wish to provide that a beneficiary’s share of your estate be held in trust rather than be distributed outright to the beneficiary.
- You wish to change the terms of a trust in your current estate planning documents (e.g., to change the ages for partial distributions or the age at which the trust will terminate and distribute to the beneficiary).
- There has been a substantial increase or decrease in the value of your assets.
- Changes in the federal estate tax exemption affect the need for tax-motivated estate planning documents.
- You desire to create a trust during your lifetime (e.g., a charitable remainder trust (CRT), a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT), an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT), or a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT)).
- You move to a different state.