Personal Injury Attorney

You may be someone who has planned out their life very carefully. During your marriage, you may have updated your estate plan to include your spouse. You may have made choices about who you want as guardians of your children if anything were to happen before they are legally adults. You may have worked closely with your spouse to make key decisions in regards to health, life, assets, beneficiaries, and so much more. And now that you are divorcing from this spouse, you will have to go back through that same process without them.

You may be wondering what to do with your estate plan now, and whether you need an attorney to make certain edits. It is highly advised that you receive guidance from an estate planning lawyer in Arlington, TX so that you can consider your state laws and other variables that may impact your estate plan.

Hire An Attorney To Work With You During This Time
An attorney can review your divorce settlement and your current estate plan documents, then make recommendations for what changes to make. Your attorney can answer any legal questions you have during this time, along with always watching out for your best interests. An attorney that is knowledgeable on estate planning specifically will be able to inform you about the laws for your state, and whether you can make edits to your estate plan now or have to wait until the divorce is finalized.

Familiarize Yourself with Documents That You Need To Change Now

With help from your attorney, you can review documents such as a power of attorney, health care proxy, will, trust, insurance policies, 401k, and more. Any trusts that you and your spouse may have created together need to be revisited as well (such as s trust for a special needs family member). For example, if you listed your ex as power of attorney for medical decisions, then they may be responsible for making choices in regards to your well being in the event you become incapacitated, fall into a coma, or are put on life support.

Your attorney can also talk to you about disinheriting your spouse if you so wish. However, if you completely remove them from your estate plan, there may be a chance that they could contest the will and request a portion of your assets later on. Whether this is possible does depend on your state law. 

Think About Creating a Trust for Child Support and Alimony

If during the divorce settlement, it looks like you are going to have to pay for child support and alimony, then you may want to create a trust for these purposes. As the trust creator, you will be responsible for funding this trust and making payments based on provisions. This can be a straightforward way of setting up recurring payments to your ex for child support and alimony without it interrupting your other finances. Furthermore, if your ex is concerned about not getting payments on-time then this can be a way to not run the risk of accidentally skipping a payment. 

Thanks to Brandy Austin Law Firm, PLLC for their insight into estate planning and divorce.