Life After Divorce: Does Your Estate Planning Need Refreshing?

On behalf of Peterson, Berk & Cross, S.C.

Whether your divorce serves as a happy or a grim milestone in your life, it is a milestone nonetheless. It is crucial at this juncture to make sure other areas of your life also reflect your new reality, including your needs and goals. Perhaps there is no other area as crucial as your estate plan as you look to the future.

“Really? I just got divorced. Can I just let things settle down for a while?”

Can you? Yes.

Should you? We will answer this question with another question: if you died tomorrow, would you feel good about all your worldly assets being left with your ex-spouse?

No!

We thought so. However, if your estate plan is like most estate plans of married couples, that is exactly what will happen unless you take a few moments to review your plan and bring it up to date after your divorce.

The focus of this post may be on revising your estate planning documents after a divorce, but this is really something you should do at every major milestone or change in your lifetime. For example, you should revise your will when you have children, when you get married, when you get divorced and if/when you remarry.

The good news is that revising your will, trusts, power of attorney and other estate planning documents does not have to be complicated. Contact us today to get started so you can move forward with peace of mind about your estate.