Articles from Mair Law Offices

If you are going through or have just completed your divorce, you are transitioning to a new life, responsibilities and commitments. You need to find time to review your current estate plan or if you don’t have one, you need to get one today. Without an estate plan in place, your assets will likely be left to your children and if they are minors, their guardian (likely your ex-spouse) will have control. In most cases, the last thing you want is for your ex to have control of your assets. If you have an estate plan, below is a quick checklist for you to consider. If you don’t have an estate plan, please call us!

• Update Your Living Trust and Will
Your living trust and will contain provisions regarding several estate planning decisions such as selecting your personal representative or executor (likely your ex-spouse), choosing a guardian of your minor children, designating the beneficiaries of your estate (your ex-spouse is probably included), and who is in charge of managing assets on behalf of the beneficiaries if they are minors. The last thing a divorced individual wants is for their ex-spouse be in charge of handling their assets should they become incapacitated or pass away.

• Update Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA) and Health Care Proxy (HCP)
These documents allow for the appointment of an agent to act on your behalf to make crucial financial decisions (DPOA) and medical decisions in case of your incapacity (HCP). Most likely your ex-spouse is the first person appointed under each document – probably the last thing you want. A new DPOA and HCP should be executed post-divorce.

• Update Beneficiaries
Beneficiary designations are persons that are appointed to receive the benefits of an account in the event the owner of the account dies (such as an IRA, 401(k), life insurance policy). These designations under each account or contract are extremely important because for estate planning purposes they generally trump any outside instructions. Even if a trust or will has been updated post-divorce, those instructions will not control disposition of an asset with a beneficiary designation attached to it unless the trust is named as a beneficiary. Individuals often fail to update all of their beneficiary designations post-divorce.

• Review How Assets are Titled (cars, real estate, investment accounts, etc.)
Title to an asset dictates how an asset is transferred at death and who has control over it during their lifetime. A mistake made in estate planning is simply listing an asset in a trust document. Proper and formal titling of all of the major assets is essential. Post-divorce it is critical that all titles be reviewed.

We invite you to call our office at (508) 250-0797 or email info@gmairlaw.com to schedule a free estate planning session with the mention of this article.

This article is intended to inform you of developments in the law and to provide information of general interest. It is not intended to constitute legal advice regarding a client’s specific legal issues and should not be relied upon as such. This article may be considered advertising under the rules of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.