Your Estate Plan: Keep it Current

There are a lot of people who update their resume much more often than they update their estate plan, but the truth is that much more can happen to your estate plan in the same amount of time. You update your resume so that you can communicate to potential employers your skills, experience, and qualifications in your professional realm. Just think for a second how out of date this resume would be if you didn’t update it for a couple of years or even a decade. Some studies have shown that the average estate plan administration can be 17 years after the last update of a trust. How much life can happen in 17 years?

Your outdated estate plan, just like an outdated resume, will not work like it should.

When did you create your plan? What has changed since then?

Take out your estate plan. If you cannot easily locate it, that is a problem itself. If something happens to you, your successor trustee needs to be able to locate your estate plan. Both your successor trustees and you should know where your estate plan is located. After you have pulled it out, review the last time that you made a change to your trust by finding the most recent amendment or restatement and see what the date is.

Now reflect on all the things that have happened since this date. Here is a list of possible changes that may affect your plan:

• Tax Law Changes
• Financial changes—positive or negative changes
• Someone has passed away
• Addictions
• Changes in health
• Move out of state
• Purchased new types of property
Business changes-- positive or negative
• Any changes in family circumstance (marriages, divorces, adoptions, births, etc.)
• Incapacity or disability

If you have created an estate plan with our firm, we do not charge for quickly reviewing your plan to see if it needs some amendments or changes. If you do not have a relationship like this with an attorney, give us a call to see how we can help you at (951) 516-2292