Estate Planning Through Life’s Changes in Kansas

Estate plans should be flexible enough to accommodate life’s changes while still reflecting the wishes of the estate planner.

It can be challenging for individuals to create estate plans that are comprehensive and address the various stages of life as well as the associated legal considerations in Kansas.

Wills, powers of attorney, advance health care directives, and trusts are a great starting point but what happens if there is a birth, marriage or death in the family?

Such major life events often affect the wishes of the estate planner and require amendments. Let’s look at how to adapt your estate plan for life changes in Kansas.

An estate plan created 20 years ago is unlikely to completely reflect an individual’s current wishes—though it might.

People don’t always create their estate plans as they approach their final years. Many individuals in Kansas take the advisable step of working on their estate plans earlier in life and live for many years afterward.

It’s inadvisable to create an estate plan that is “set in stone” and cannot be changed. Most common estate plans include strategies that are flexible enough to be altered to reflect life’s changes, such as wills, powers of attorney, and revocable trusts.

Whether it’s a significant life event or the accumulation of more assets that prompts a change to estate planning documents, they can be reviewed and new versions can be drafted or existing versions amended to reflect the new reality. However, the assistance of a qualified estate planning lawyer may be required to ensure that the documents remain legally enforceable.

Perhaps you’ve welcomed a new member to the family, got remarried or divorced or a loved one has passed away.

How does this affect your estate plan?

These common but major life events can have a severe impact on the plans of those who have already expressed their wishes for later in life and after they pass away.

Unless you review your estate plan regularly—every few years—you’re running the risk of unexpected life changes hampering the plans you made previously.

It’s not only planning for your loved ones that may be affected. Estate planning often impacts important matters like what happens if you lose mental or physical capacity, who makes financial decisions for you, and so on.

Estate plans should be considered “living” documents that require reviews and updates as life’s changes affect you. Even if no major changes have affected your life, people’s opinions, attitudes, and wishes can change over the years and these may require estate plan updates or fine-tuning.

Consider the following questions when deciding whether (or what) you need to update:

• Have there been changes in the family dynamics? Marriage, remarriage, divorce, birth, death, adoption of children, etc. are compelling reasons to review and update wills or trusts. Without changing these estate planning documents, there could be serious unintended consequences, like an ex-spouse inheriting something that was intended for a new spouse or minor children left without a legal guardian appointed.
• Do any major financial changes need to be addressed? If you bought or sold a business, benefited from a successful investment or inherited a sum of money/property it may prompt a change in a will or trust.
• Have you relocated to another state or country? Different estate and tax laws for probate, trusts, estate taxes, etc., could necessitate a change to comply with local laws.
• Is the executor or trustee you appointed still the best person? Relationships change and, if there is a loss of trust or respect for an executor/trustee or the nominated individual can no longer fulfill the role, an amendment could be required to appoint a new person to the role.
• Have the local estate laws changed? Kansas estate laws are not set in stone and may change at times. If so, this can impact your estate planning decisions—which should be reviewed with a qualified professional.

The most common place to start with an estate plan review is to update your will and any trusts you’ve created to reflect your current circumstances.

You should review your estate plan with a Kansas estate planning lawyer, who can guide you through the options available to achieve your wishes when circumstances change and remain compliant with local laws.

Amendments to wills are usually made in the form of codicils. All changes must be executed with the same formalities as the original will.

With trusts, changes are usually made through amendments. If significant changes are required, the entire trust setup and documentation may need to be rewritten.

If beneficiaries, executors, trustees or other interested parties were aware of the previous arrangements, they should be informed of the amendments—as well as any new beneficiaries or interested parties that the changes may affect.

Locking away your will, trust or other estate planning documents for 20 years without so much as a glance in that time can be a big mistake.

We’ve covered most of the major life events that will necessitate a review and update of your estate plan—like births, deaths, and marriages—but other less obvious examples should also be addressed in estate plans as and when they arise.

To consider your options, speak to an estate planning lawyer at Irigonegaray & Revenaugh, LLP in Topeka during a free case evaluation.