Wills and Estate Plans Need Regular Updating to Deliver Your Wishes

Wills and Estate Plans can last a lifetime…with some caveats. The “legal” side of the plan is binding well into the future because it is written as a legal (and enforceable) set of documents. However, what doesn’t stay constant throughout your life are your wishes and desires…these are constantly changing.

One of the biggest advantages of having a well-designed and created Estate Plan is that it is like the script of a play. It is written in such a way as to allow your wishes and desired to be carried out exactly the way you have scripted them. And if things never changed, then your original Estate Plan would work just fine. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone whose life isn’t constantly changing. Kids come into the picture, they grow up, they leave, jobs change, marriages change, and a host of other life events happen.

While there are rarely many state legislatures changes to the laws of wills and trusts, there are lots of life changes that happen as a regular occurrence.  Therefore, an Estate Plan that was created years ago may still be a good legal document according to current estate laws but may be completely off course due to all the changes in your life.

Whether an estate plan is a good one depends on other laws that change more often, as the Dunwoody Crier points out in "Estate Planning 2018."

Another consideration to keep in mind is that Estate Planning is extremely sensitive to tax laws and regulations which do have frequent changes. When an estate planning attorney helps a client create a plan, the attorney drafts a plan that is the best possible to accomplish the client's goals and deliver on their wishes under the current laws. However, when the laws change, it often means that the previous Estate Plan may no longer be a good representation of your goals or wishes.

What this all boils down to is that your Estate Plan is a time sensitive document and needs to be reviewed with regularity to ensure it is maximizing the current laws and delivering on your wishes and desires. When it was written, it was prepared under the assumption that you would pass away before the laws changed. If you signed it a couple of weeks ago, that's not a problem. However, if you created your current Estate Plan more than a year ago, it is likely that either the laws have changed significantly or your wishes and desires have changed.

It is always a good idea to have your Estate Plan up to date and reflecting your current wishes and desires within the constraints of the current laws. I recommend to my clients that we have a regular checkup once a year just to make sure it is delivering what it was designed to deliver. This doesn’t have to be a big formal meeting (often times it can be a simple phone call) but should happen on a regular basis.