With a new year arriving, it’s time to consider reviewing and updating legal documents. Elder law attorney Steve Waltar joins Suzanne to talk about when to update estate plans.
Steve says, “The $64,000 question: Hey, when should I update my estate plan, or how do I know? It always depends, right? That’s what an attorney says, it depends. I think it’s wonderful to to to check in with the attorney annually. As a rule, we tell clients every five years, you should come in to kick the tires. Because by then your goals may have changed. Your assets have certainly changed. It might even be your wishes and goals have changed for your beneficiaries. On an annual basis, laws tend to change.
“People usually come to us because there’s changes in people, right? … Obviously, divorce is huge, right? Who do you want to get your assets? Who do you want to be in charge? That’s a big deal. But it can be the children as well, right? If the daughter got married and her last name changed, that’s not going to mean we couldn’t find her in the event of a death to be a beneficiary. But if one of the kids went through a divorce, or got married, and you wanted to treat the step-grandchild as if it was a grandchild, that takes planning, it doesn’t happen automatically.”
Steve adds, “So I tell people, look, we have attorney-client privilege here. I need to ask you about your assets and your family. And I may ask you some nosy questions. I actually say that, just kind of playfully. And when I’m asking about the children, I am trying to draw legal conclusions about whether they be good power of attorney, successor, trustee. Would they be good at that, or not good at money? Or maybe they’re about to go through a divorce, or maybe they’ve been sued before. Maybe we need to do asset protection for the children… So a lot of the planning that I do is to try to figure out a little bit more about the children and grandchildren. I mean, what are they like? Because mom and dad have the ability to give them more protection than they can do themselves.”
“There’s nothing more unequal than the unequal treatment of unequals. I have two daughters. They’re wonderful, They’re different. My clients have multiple kids. They’re not all the same. They don’t all know they’re not. And so, if you’re able to communicate what’s going on. You maybe have a makeup provision, maybe someone did get kind of an advancement, someone’s living in the house and you want them to be able to get the house. But it probably shouldn’t be in addition to their share. Maybe it should be part of their share. When people are getting health care, do you honor that? Do you not? If you don’t communicate at all, the likelihood for disharmony or family fighting goes up dramatically.”
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