When Should You Update Your Living Trust and Will
It’s no secret that creating a Living Trust and Will is not most people’s idea of a fun time. However, it’s essential to the strength of your estate plan, the control of your assets, and the protection of your loved ones.
For your Living Trust and Will to best serve you, it’s important to make sure they remain up-to-date. This means updating them on an as-needed basis to ensure that your assets remain protected according to your wishes. But, when should you update your Living Trust and Will? Our legal team at Rilus Law is here to explain.
Why Revise a Living Trust?
Your Living Trust — also known as a Revocable Trust — can be changed or canceled at any point during the trustor’s lifetime. With that being said, it should be revised to reflect any recent change in life circumstances. Oftentimes, this involves making changes to your list of beneficiaries or addressing a domestic matter.
Here are some of the most common reasons to update your Living Trust:
Wedding or divorce
Change in residency status
Change in financial status
Either a trustee’s or beneficiary’s death
New tax laws that impact the Trust’s assets
A good rule of thumb is to update your Trust every 3-5 years to accurately reflect your current assets. Keeping your Living Trust up to date is a crucial step in preventing your loved ones from dealing with a lengthy probate process.
When You Should Update Your Will
Your Last Will and Testament defines how to distribute your assets, names the legal guardians of your children, and appoints a personal representative. You write your Last Will and Testament while you are still alive, then the executor of the estate carries out your wishes once you have passed.
Like a Living Trust, there are several prominent life events that would constitute updating your Will:
A change in tax law impacts your estate
You inherit assets from friends or family
Selling or buying a business
Retirement
Selling or buying real estate
Marriage or divorce
Financial setbacks
Birth of a child or grandchild
The addition of new in-laws to your family
Death of a spouse, child, or grandchild
Unforeseen medical costs or expenses
Moving to a new state
Any of the above changes in life circumstances will impact your Last Will and Testament. If you don’t update your Will accordingly, you risk the probate courts deciding how to handle your assets after your death. This often results in your assets not being distributed the way you might have wished them to be.
Top Estate Planning Attorneys in Phoenix, AZ
Estate planning can be an overwhelming, lengthy, and confusing process. That’s where we come in. Rather than attempting to navigate your estate plan on your own, let us do the tough stuff for you. We work to simplify the estate planning process for our clients to help you determine what works best for you.
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Contact us today for a free consultation, and let’s get started!