March 19, 2024

When Should An Estate Plan Be Reviewed

If you already have an estate plan, it should not be considered permanent. Conditions, as well as your desires, change. Your plan will try to fairly anticipate some of these changes within reason. However, even though it may be a forward looking plan, we all have to revisit our estate plans to update them for events which happen to us.

I advise my clients to review their plans annually, maybe around the holidays or at their birthdate, and come back to me to discuss them if something significant happened that year.

Important changes in your life might include:

  1. Marriage, divorce, or disability of you, a family member, a beneficiary, or fiduciary;
  2. Birth or death of a family member, beneficiary, or fiduciary;
  3. Large increase or decrease in the net worth of you, a family member, a beneficiary, or fiduciary;
  4. Substantial change in the type of your assets;
  5. Purchase or sale of a business;
  6. Change of residence to another state;
  7. Change in tax law;
  8. Change in your health condition;
  9. Change in any of your relationship dynamics with a family member, a beneficiary, relative, or fiduciary;
  10. Change in the need, dependence, or independence of a beneficiary; or
  11. Any thing else that is significant.
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