Category: Divorce

Divorce represents plenty of changes in your life and it can be hard to keep track of all those details.

Any major change in your life should prompt you to reconsider your current will and other estate planning documents. It is vital to update your will at these points in time because you need to verify that your estate plan is up to date overall. If you fail to update your will or other estate planning documents after a divorce, your ex-spouse may legally be entitled to certain assets inside your estate.

One of the first steps you should take after getting a divorce is to meet with your estate planning lawyer. Many people are relieved to receive their final divorce decree and want to move on with their life but meeting with an estate planning lawyer is critical for protecting your interests and ensuring that you have updated all of your beneficiary designation forms as well. For example, do not forget about retirement accounts or life insurance policies where that same spouse may also be listed as a beneficiary.

If you have other questions about what’s involved in the estate planning process and how you can approach it most effectively following any major change in your life, now is the perfect opportunity to consult with an experienced and dedicated estate planning lawyer. Bring copies of your current documents to your meeting with your estate planning attorney to discuss the next steps you need to take and any other updates that you might need to make.

Each person in a couple needs a team to help them navigate the tricky waters of divorce. The financial breakup and dissolution of your marriage has important implications for everything from retirement to the beneficiary designation forms you filed with your life insurance company.

And there’s no doubt that you are likely overwhelmed with all of the emotional, financial and physical aspects of parting ways to begin with so it can be hard to keep track of all of these details and ensure they are dealt with properly. Advising clients through major life changes is a core component of an estate planning attorney’s job.

A good rule to follow is to remain impartial and open when discussing estate planning matters with your attorney. Some of the most common things you might wish to bring up with your financial professionals and estate planning lawyer include:

• An inventory of all the assets that are owned individually or jointly by the couple.
• A listing of expenses including how those expenses might be adjusted for each spouse after the divorce.
• Information about any long term care life or disability policies currently in place.
• Reviews of any prenuptial agreement and how this could impact the division of assets in the divorce.

Your estate planning attorney can help you to look at the different documents that may need to be updated after you have gone through the divorce process. Knowing that you have another party to guide you through this difficult situation can help to make this complicated aspect of your life somewhat easier.

Need support from a NJ estate planning attorney? Divorce calls upon you to update your documents and ensure that everything is aligned with your new plans.

 

Plenty of people have rethought their life choices including the partners, their homes and even their careers as a result of the pandemic. If you are one of the people who is thinking about getting a divorce, you are not alone since this prolonged period of being at home could lead some people to make the decision that it’s time for a change.

If you’re ready for the next chapter in your life, you need to be prepared for several different things that you can and should not do. First of all, if you begin to file for divorce you cannot change beneficiary designations of retirement accounts and life insurance policies or retitle assets. 

The vast majority of states will block you from being allowed to transfer ownership of assets or changing your beneficiary designations until assets have been divided as part of the divorce court process. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t update anything. You are eligible to update your trust and your will so that you can identify a new guardian for your children or name a new trustee or executor. 

You’ll also want to have a sit down conversation with your divorce attorney and potentially your estate planning attorney about some of the other issues that often come up around divorce. You might be interested in updating your materials as soon as possible to disinherit your spouse but there is the possibility that your spouse could still have a claim against your estate if you pass away during the divorce. 

Before the divorce is final, you’ll need to be clear about the ability for these documents to remain active and active in terms of allowing your spouse to inherit something. If you attempt to disinherit your spouse entirely while the divorce is still pending and you pass away, your spouse could actually sue your estate for the assets they would be entitled to under state law. For a conversation about these complicated issues, contact your dedicated estate planning attorney to discuss your options.        

 

Going through a divorce is difficult and it shakes up your family structure and even your day-to-day life in a big way. There are also so many legal issues that have to be handled to dissolve the marriage and allow you to move on with your own life, such as moving into a new place to live or updating your last name if you had previously taken the last name of your spouse.

 

Some marriages might end quietly, leaving you to think that you have handled all of the most important issues from a legal perspective and are able to move on successfully into your new life. However, you need to think carefully about the importance of planning and updating your estate following the divorce.

Without a spouse through whom you can anchor your estate plan, guardians, executors, trustees and agents under health care proxies and power of attorney must be reconsidered and formally updated in your documentation. These are not the only type of documents that need to be evaluated and carefully handled in the wake of a divorce. This is because separate documentation under beneficiary forms take priority outside of any wishes you make in your estate plan.

For example, beneficiary forms associated with your life insurance policy or retirement plans must be updated to reflect the dissolution of the marriage, otherwise these are legally binding and you most likely have your spouse listed as the recipient of these accounts. Make sure that you review your marriage dissolution documents to determine some of the steps you need to take. Provisions inside these agreements might call for the removal of spouses from one another’s estate planning documents and retirement accounts but it falls to you to make sure that this is carried through.

 

There’s a strong chance that your wedding checklist does not include a trip to your estate planning lawyer, but there’s a good reason it should: remarriage shifts the family dynamics and your new documents should reflect this new makeup. Many individuals in the U.S. are facing the prospect of a second or third marriage.

In fact, according to a Pew Research Center report, 40 percent of marriages in 2013 alone were remarriages for one or both spouses. The stats for failing to create or update an estate plan are even more problematic. As much as 63 percent of the U.S. population doesn’t even have a will, and nearly ten percent have an outdated one. 

This combination of outdated or nonexistent documents and a new marriage can present a conundrum. If something happens to you, the old valid documents will still hold, even if they give power of attorney or property over to a former spouse.

If you’re getting married, there are plenty of things to celebrate, but don’t let your planning opportunities go out the window. It’s a critical time to update your documents and ensure that you have everything in line for your new family dynamics and individual needs. Contact a New Jersey estate planning lawyer to learn more.

 

If you’ve previously used one estate planning attorney for both you and your spouse, it may be a new opportunity to shop around and identify the appropriate New Jersey estate planning lawyer to help you after getting divorced. There are many different ways that a divorce can change your landscape and it is imperative to work with an attorney who understands how divorce can change your estate planning goals.

There are also benefits to speaking with a financial professional as well since all property divided associated with a divorce is a non-taxable event even though the cost basis of the holding does carry over. There are also unique concerns associated with retirement assets and how these can be incorporated into your estate planning goals. Updating all of your beneficiary information and documentation that previously listed your spouse as a power of attorney agent, for example, is strongly recommended.

Speaking with a lawyer immediately after your divorce is final is strongly recommended but you may also benefit from speaking with someone in the months leading up to your final divorce decree. Understanding the many different ways that divorce can impact your life can ensure that your new documents and plans are in line with your different life arrangements after ending your marriage.

 

While no one plans ahead for a divorce when they get married, if your marriage does come to an end there are certain steps you should take in order to protect your individual interests and to ensure that your estate plan reflects your newly updated marital status. Although this process can feel overwhelming, you do need to consider everything.

Once your divorce decree has been issued and a judgement is rendered from a court, you need to revise and review all of the following estate planning and legal documents:

• Life insurance policies
• Will
• Powers of attorney
• Trusts
• Retirement accounts

If you don’t make these changes you could be exposing your other beneficiaries to a serious issue. If you were to suddenly pass away, for example, and your partner is still listed on your life insurance policy, he or she may receive all of the proceeds instead of your children or other beneficiaries. This is true even if your other estate planning documents explain that these proceeds should go to your children. While there are some situations in which you may want your ex-spouse to be your beneficiary, there are others where you would need to change this as soon as possible. Updating all of these documents immediately after a decision has been handed down is critical. Do not hesitate to set up a meeting with an estate planning attorney in New Jersey as soon as possible after you get divorced. A comprehensive review of your full situation can help to illuminate any potential issues and give you a framework from which to start.

Trust planning can be complex, which is why it should always be handled by an experienced estate lawyer. Depending on the type of trust you choose, there are many benefits you can reap from choosing this kind of tool. More and more, however, individuals are considering putting verbiage inside their trusts to have a spouse removed in the event of a divorce. Like most aspects of putting together such critical documents, there are pros and cons to this approach.

While safeguarding a trust by including such a provision might work out in the long run, not every divorce tears the couple apart entirely. Sometimes the couples part ways but are able to remain close for the purposes of raising children or even managing a family business. Some partners are divorced and then decide to remarry after a period of time. 

While the basic concept of planning ahead to protect assets is a good one in general, it’s hard to predict the future in the event that you do get divorced. There’s no telling what kind of emotions might be on the table at that time. In some cases, leaving the trust assets up for negotiation at the time of divorce can allow the parties to make better decisions for certain assets, like business interests.

There are three ways that you can plan ahead without restricting yourself too much in terms of a trust:

• Aim for flexibility alongside precision to ensure that both parties have options in a divorce
• Language that protects what the majority of divorce settlors would hope for
• Seek an attorney who understands that he or she may have duties to both spouses at the trust drafting stage

To learn more about setting up a trust for success, contact us today at info@lawesq.net.