5 Reasons to Update Your Estate Plan<\/p>\n
Estate plans are almost magical: they allow you to maintain control of your assets, yet protect you should you become incapacitated. They take care of your family and pets. And, if carefully crafted, they reduce fees, taxes, stress, and time delays. Estate plans can even keep your family and financial affairs private. But one thing estate plans can\u2019t do is update themselves.
\nEstate plans are written to reflect your situation at a specific point in time. While they have some flexibility, the bottom line is that our lives continually change and unfold in ways we might not have ever been anticipated. Your plan needs to reflect those changes. If not, if will be as stale as last week\u2019s ham sandwich and can fail miserably.
\nIf anything in the following 5 categories has occurred in your life since you signed your estate planning documents, call us now to schedule a meeting. We\u2019ll get you in ASAP to make sure you and your family get protected.
\n1. Marriage, Divorce, Death. Marriage, remarriage, divorce, and death all require substantial changes to an estate plan. Think of all the roles a spouse plays in our lives. We\u2019ll need to evaluate beneficiaries, trustees, successor trustees, executors\/personal representatives, and agents under powers of attorney.<\/p>\n
2. Change in Financial Status. A substantial change in financial status \u2013 positive or negative \u2013 generally requires an estate plan update. These changes can be the result of launching, winding down, or selling a business; business and professional success; filing bankruptcy; suffering medical crisis; retiring; receiving an inheritance; or, even winning the lottery.<\/p>\n
3. Birth, Adoption, or Death of a Child \/ Grandchild. The birth or adoption of a child or grandchild may call for the creation of gifting trusts, 529 education plans, gifting plans, and UGMA \/ UTMA (Uniform Gifts to Minors Act \/ Uniform Transfers to Minors Act) accounts. We\u2019ll also need to reevaluate beneficiaries, trustees, successor trustees, executors\/personal representatives, and agents under powers of attorney.<\/p>\n
4. Change in Circumstances. Circumstances change. It\u2019s a fact of life – and when you\u2019re the beneficiary or fiduciary of an estate plan, those changes may warrant revisions to the plan. Common examples include:<\/p>\n
\u25cf Children and grandchildren attain adulthood and are able to serve in trusted helper roles
\n\u25cf Relationships change and different trusted helpers need to be named
\n\u25cf Beneficiaries or trusted helpers develop overspending or drug \/ gambling habits
\n\u25cf Guardians, executors, or trustees are no longer able (or no longer wish) to serve in their preassigned roles
\n\u25cf Beneficiaries become disabled and need a special needs trust to receive government benefits
\n\u25cf Guardians for minor children divorce, move to a new state, or are, otherwise, no longer appropriate to serve<\/p>\n
5. Changes in Venue. Moving from one state to another always warrants estate plan review as state\u2019s laws differ. Changes may be needed to ensure that you\u2019re taking full advantage of \u2013 and not being penalized by \u2013 your new state\u2019s laws. This is also true when purchasing a second home outside of your state.<\/p>\n
Estate Plans Are Created to Help, Not Hurt, You
\nOld estate plans get stale just like old sandwiches. (My mother used to say company is kind of like fish \u2013 after three days you have to throw it out.) You wouldn\u2019t eat last week\u2019s fish for lunch; please don\u2019t rely on your estate plan from yesteryear. If you\u2019ve experienced any of the changes we\u2019ve mentioned in this article, it\u2019s time to come in and chat. We\u2019ll review your estate plan and make sure you and your loved ones are protected.
\nFeel free to call or email with any questions about any part of your estate plan or your estate planning needs.
\nDoug Thesenvitz
\n605-334-9448
\ndoug@siouxfallsestateplanning.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
5 Reasons to Update Your Estate Plan Estate plans are almost magical: they allow you to maintain control of your assets, yet protect you should you become incapacitated. They take care of your family and pets. And, if carefully crafted, they reduce fees, taxes, stress, and time delays. Estate plans can even keep your family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfsdlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}