What Happens to Your Estate Plan When You Divorce?
If you look for it, you can find aspirational content about people who claim that divorce gave them a new lease on life. Most of it is selling you false hope. While you might feel relieved about getting out of an unhappy marriage, you might be among the large group of recently divorced people who feel stuck. Somewhere, someone felt an enormous sense of accomplishment when she unloaded her dishwasher for the first time after receiving a copy of her husband’s divorce petition, after the dishes stayed in the dishwasher four months later. A wall calendar somewhere is still open to the month in which the couple that owned it separated, even though that month ended years ago. Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that some people wait until years after they get divorced before updating their estate plans. Unlike what you will hear in corners of the Internet that exist to feed people’s fears, failure to update your estate plan does not mean that your ex-spouse will inherit everything. Some parts of your estate plan change when you divorce, but others don’t. For help getting unstuck when it comes to updating your estate plan after divorce, contact a Washington, D.C. estate planning lawyer.
Some Parts of Your Estate Plan Automatically Change
Even if you do not follow celebrity gossip, you probably have some recollection of lurid stories where a wealthy couple separated but did not divorce, or else filed for divorce and got locked in a years-long legal battle, but whatever the reason, the husband died before the divorce became final, and the wife inherited just as much as she would have if they had never separated. You might have heard even worse stories about estranged spouses controlling the finances and medical care of elders who are in poor health.
If you signed a power of attorney listing your spouse as the agent, it automatically becomes invalid once one spouse files for divorce. Unfortunately, healthcare advance directives do not automatically change when you divorce, so if you don’t want your ex making medical decisions on your behalf, you must amend your healthcare directive to authorize someone else to voice your decisions about healthcare.
If your spouse is a beneficiary of your will, you should write a new will as soon as possible. If you don’t update your will after you divorce, and the probate court administers the will that you wrote during your marriage, it will interpret the will as if your ex-spouse died before you did. Meanwhile, if you die while your divorce is pending, the court will interpret the will as if you and your spouse are still legally married, because you are.
Ways That Your Ex-Spouse Stays in Your Estate Plan
Divorce has little effect on non-probate assets. If you have a trust or a transfer on death (TOD) beneficiary designation on a bank account, you should change it, because if you don’t, your spouse will inherit from it as if you were still married.
Contact Tobin O’Connor Concino P.C. About Becoming a Financially Secure Single Senior
A Washington, D.C. estate planning attorney can help you update your estate plan after divorce. Contact Tobin O’Connor Concino P.C. in Washington, D.C. or call 202-362-5900.
Source:
dccourts.gov/services/probate-matters/tusts-trp
