Is Your Estate Plan Up To Date?

Oftentimes, people will create their estate plans, tuck them away in a drawer or file, and never think of them again. However, your estate plan should be updated somewhat often, especially when any life change occurs. If something in your family, your assets, or even the law changes, your estate plan could become worthless. It is so important to make sure your plan is up to date. You must be actively updating it in the event of change. 

One of the most common estate planning mistakes an estate planning lawyer encounters is when a loved one calls regarding someone who either became incapacitated or died with a plan that no longer works. The loved one then has to deal with the stressful, expensive, and not guaranteed process of ensuring assets are divided evenly amongst family members and loved ones. This is a situation we can help you avoid.

How Often Should You Be Reviewing Your Estate Plan?

You should be reviewing your plan annually. This will only ensure that your plan is up to date and keep your loved ones out of a stressful, draining, and the expensive problem comes incapacitation or your death. 

So How Can You Be Sure Yours is Up To Date?

For starters, it would help to keep a regularly updated inventory of all of your assets. This will help keep your plan current. Please also note that in order to properly title your assets that are held by a trust, you need to transfer the legal title to the trust for them to be distributed properly. This is also known as “funding” the trust. While it is absolutely necessary to ensure that your estate plan is valid and up to date with a lawyer specializing in estate planning, you should make sure your lawyer ensures that all of your assets are properly funded. Here at North County Legal, this is a priority for us along with making certain that any new assets you acquire throughout your life are inventoried and properly funded for your trust as well. This ensures that your family will not have to be forced into court because your plan was never fully completed. 

Contact us today to get started.

Here at North County Legal, we make an effort to not only serve you but also your entire family. We take the time to get to know you and your family so we can properly include them in the planning process, per your desires. We believe that the estate planning process works best when you and your loved ones are all educated on your estate plan. We will also ensure that your plan is regularly updated to be sure it works perfectly according to your desires. We have legal systems in place that will ensure your legal documents stay updated so you don’t have to.