MARRIAGE & DIVORCE

Yes. Marriage and divorce are two of the most important reasons to review your Living Trust and your entire estate plan.

Both events can substantially change your family relationships, property ownership, beneficiaries and the people you want making financial or healthcare decisions for you.

California law can also affect inheritance rights and certain estate-planning provisions after marriage or divorce. But relying on California’s default rules is very different from creating an estate plan that clearly states what you actually want.

If you recently married or divorced—or if your trust was created before either event—your estate plan deserves a careful review.

Getting married does not simply rewrite every provision of an existing Living Trust.

If you created a trust while single and later marry, the document may continue to contain instructions created for an entirely different family situation.

For example, your existing trust may:

• Leave everything to children, parents or siblings
• Name someone other than your new spouse as beneficiary
• Name an old friend or relative as successor trustee
• Contain no planning for your spouse
• Address only property you owned before marriage
• Fail to address property acquired during the marriage