When you get divorced, it can mean significant changes have to be made in your life, so you may create a divorce checklist. You will need to make a post-divorce budget since you will now have to cover all of your necessary costs on one income.
As you make this checklist, it can be helpful to add “update estate plan” to the tasks you need to complete. Marital changes are among the top reasons to modify your estate plan, and they can significantly shift what you want to do with your assets.
If you previously listed your spouse as the main beneficiary who should receive everything that you own, you may want to change that designation to pass the assets on to your adult children, for example. It’s important to know what the law says about how divorce affects estate plans, even when the person who created the plan doesn’t take steps to change it.
Medical documentation
One key thing to remember is that your estate plan is about more than just your assets. Maybe you already had selected other beneficiaries, so your spouse was not going to receive all of your assets to begin with.
However, if you have a living will providing instructions for medical care if you become incapacitated and listed your spouse as your health care surrogate who can make your medical decisions, you may want to change that, if you haven’t already. Because your marriage is ending, you may want to choose a new surrogate or make different decisions regarding how your care will be handled.
Make sure that you know exactly what legal steps to take to make these updates and alterations to your plan and the appropriate timing for them. Having experienced legal guidance can help.