As we enter the spring season it is natural to think about cleaning and organizing our lives. Whether it’s sprucing up our home, office or neighborhood, this can be a rejuvenating time for renewing the positive energy of spring. Among your cleaning tasks, you should also include your estate plan which may be outdated or in need of review to ensure its still effective for your family.
You may find you need to re-do your entire plan or may be just a few items that need attention. So, what should you focus on with your estate planning spring updates? Here are a few ideas to guide you:
What types of assets are in your estate plan, and are they easily accessible?
In your estate plan, you may have bank or brokerage accounts and real estate in your name. These are all easily distributed by an executor or trustee, via trusted custodians and legal registries. But what about less common properties, especially those known as ‘bearer’ assets? (i.e., items under your personal control)
Bearer assets can include gold or silver coins (maybe you found one while spring cleaning!), artwork, jewelry, and digital assets such as Bitcoin. Sometimes locating, valuing or even accessing this type of property can be a challenge. Your trustee will need keys/passwords to vaults or safe deposit boxes, and cryptographic keys for digital assets. Be sure to include all details on your bearer assets in your estate plan, and where or how they are stored.
Have you accounted for any changes in your family, such as marriage, divorce or the addition of children?
Certain types of life events can change how you manage your estate plan. This can go beyond simply adding or removing beneficiary names, so it’s worthwhile to consider how changes might affect the overall strategy within your estate plan. Keep in mind that any modifications to an estate plan document will replace previous versions.
Are your estate planning goals like minimizing taxes, caring for minor children or giving to charity, still the same?
As we get older, our estate planning goals can change, which means the documents must also be amended. Asset values increase, children no longer need support, and we might want to add new beneficiaries such as favorite charities. If you haven’t reviewed your estate plan in a few years, this spring is the perfect time to make sure it still meets your objectives.
Learn what you need to do next with one of our spring workshopsIf you are ready to learn more about how to begin the estate planning review process, you can contact us for a consultation or attend one of our workshops to get more information. For a schedule of our upcoming workshops, please visit www.estateplanningworkshop.org or better yet, schedule a consultation today at (951) 414-3731.
