Estate planning & divorce

Your estate plan is a set of standing instructions: a will or trust saying who inherits, beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and insurance, powers of attorney naming who acts for you, healthcare directives naming who decides for you. Almost every one of those instructions, written during a marriage, points at your spouse. Divorce changes who you want at the other end of those instructions. But it doesn’t change all of them automatically, and it changes almost none of them while the case is pending. State laws differ on what a final divorce revokes on its own, and federal rules override state law for certain accounts, most notably many employer retirement plans. Translation: the safety net has holes, the holes vary by state and account type, and the only reliable fix is updating the documents themselves.

If you’re getting married, especially a second marriage or one involving real assets, your estate plan and your prenuptial agreement should be drafted to work together. A prenup can define what each spouse waives or keeps at death; the estate plan carries out the details. This is how blended families keep two promises at once: care for the new spouse, inheritance for the kids from before. Couples who coordinate these documents early spare their families the ugliest kind of litigation there is, the kind that happens over a casket.

The period between filing and decree is the exposed season. You’re still legally married, your old documents are mostly still live, and your case may take a year. Things to handle, promptly and in the right order: Your will and any revocable trust. In most states you can execute a new will during the divorce. You generally can’t fully disinherit a spouse you’re still married to, because spousal shares exist until the decree, but you can usually cut their role and their take to the legal minimum, remove them as executor or trustee, and redirect everything the law allows. Powers of attorney and healthcare directives. This one’s urgent and completely within your control. If your spouse is your agent, they can act on your finances and your medical care while you’re divorcing them. Revoke and replace these documents early. Few updates matter more and none is easier. Beneficiary designations, carefully. Life insurance, retirement accounts, payable-on-death designations. Here’s the trap: once a divorce is filed, many courts impose restraining orders that freeze changes to certain beneficiaries and assets while the case is pending. Changing the wrong designation mid-case can put you in contempt. So the rule is: inventory everything now, change what’s permitted, and queue the rest for the day the decree signs. This is exactly the coordination a family lawyer and estate planner should be doing together, and why it helps when they’re the same firm. Guardianship of your children. If you have minor children, your will’s guardianship nomination deserves a fresh look, along with who would manage money left to them. Usually the other parent raises the kids if you’re gone. But who controls the inheritance is a separate question, and most people mid-divorce feel strongly about the answer.

The divorce is final. Now finish the job, because this is where the famous horror stories are born. The ex-spouse who collects the life insurance a decade later. The 401(k) that federal law pays to the ex because the form was never updated, whatever the will said, whatever the decree said. Courts have enforced exactly that result. The form wins. Update the form. The post-decree checklist: new will or trust reflecting your actual wishes. Every beneficiary designation, retirement, insurance, bank and brokerage accounts, confirmed in writing. New powers of attorney and healthcare directives if not already done. Trust structures revised where an ex-spouse was a trustee or beneficiary. Titles and deeds actually transferred per the decree. And any obligations the decree imposes, like maintaining life insurance for support or the kids’ benefit, implemented and documented. Then put a reminder in your calendar to review it all again after any major life event. Estate plans don’t expire, but they do go stale, and stale plans execute anyway.