The Estate Plan Checkup: Seven Things to Review Before Year-End

National Estate Planning Awareness Week runs from October 19 through 25 this year. Most of what you'll see shared during this timeframe is aimed at people who don't have a plan yet, which is understandable, because plenty of families don't. There's a second group that gets far less attention, and it includes everyone who signed documents some years ago, filed them away, and hasn't looked at them since.

 

A plan that made perfect sense the day you signed it can quietly stop aligning with your life, and it's important to remember that nothing has to go wrong for that to happen. People move, families change, assets change, and the person you trusted most a decade ago may not be the right choice today.

 

Here are seven things I'd look at before the year closes out:

 

1. Your will or trust. Read through who receives what and ask whether the distribution still reflects what you want. If you have a trust, check who is named as successor trustee, and confirm that the assets you meant to fund into it actually made it there.

 

2. The people you named. Executors, trustees, agents under a power of attorney, and healthcare representatives all need to be available, willing, and trustworthy at the moment they're called on, not just on the day you signed. Relationships change and people move away, and someone who was an obvious choice years ago sometimes isn't anymore.

 

3. Your financial power of attorney. North Carolina law requires that certain significant powers be expressly granted, including making a gift, changing a beneficiary designation, and creating or changing rights of survivorship. An older document may not include them. It's also a good idea to confirm that the document was properly acknowledged, since an institution isn't required to accept one that wasn't.

 

4. Your healthcare directives. A healthcare power of attorney and a living will only help if they reflect what you'd actually want and if the right people can get to them. Confirm that your named agent still knows they're named and that your preferences haven't shifted.

 

5. What's changed in your life. Marriage, divorce, a birth, a death, a new business, a move to another state, retirement, or a significant change in what you own can all affect how a plan operates. North Carolina law addresses some of this automatically. An absolute divorce, for example, generally revokes the provisions of a will that favor a former spouse, and it also ends a spouse's authority as agent under a financial power of attorney unless the document says otherwise. Automatic changes only go so far, and they can leave results nobody intended.

 

6. Beneficiary designations and how assets are titled. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts pass by designation rather than through your will. When those forms are out of date, they can quietly override the plan you paid to have drafted.

 

7. Where the originals are. A document nobody can locate is difficult to use. Make sure at least one person you trust knows where the signed originals are kept and how to reach me if something happens.

 

A review is usually a shorter and simpler appointment than people expect. Sometimes everything still fits, and sometimes a small amendment takes care of it. Occasionally, a plan needs more substantial work, and it's far better to learn that now than to have your family learn it later. If it's been several years since anyone read your documents, this week is a reasonable prompt to get it on the calendar.

 

You can schedule a time to talk with me here.

 

This article is general information about North Carolina law and is not legal advice for your particular situation.