Creating a living trust is an important step in organizing your estate, but completing the documents does not necessarily mean you should put them away and never look at them again.
Over the years, families, finances, property ownership, and personal circumstances change. Periodically reviewing your living trust and related estate documents can help you determine whether they still reflect your current circumstances and wishes.
Life Changes Are a Good Reason to Review Your Documents
There is no single schedule that applies to everyone. However, certain events are a good reminder to take another look at your estate documents.
These may include:
- Marriage, divorce, or the death of a spouse
- Birth or adoption of children or grandchildren
- Death or incapacity of a beneficiary, trustee, or other person named in your documents
- Buying or selling real estate
- Refinancing property or changing how property is titled
- Significant changes in your assets or financial circumstances
- Starting, selling, or closing a business
- Moving to another state
- Changes in family relationships
- Simply changing your mind about who should receive property or serve in an important role
Even when there hasn’t been a major life event, periodically reviewing documents that were prepared many years ago can be worthwhile.
Don’t Forget About the Assets in Your Trust
A living trust works together with the ownership and beneficiary arrangements for your assets.
For example, if you purchased real property after creating your trust, you may want to check how the property is currently titled. The same is true if property was removed from a trust during a refinance or other transaction.
Your financial accounts, beneficiary designations, and other assets may also have changed since your estate plan was originally prepared.
Review More Than Just the Living Trust
When reviewing an estate plan, it can be useful to look at all of the related documents rather than just the trust itself. Depending upon the documents you previously prepared, these might include your:
Living Trust • Will • Power of Attorney • Advance Health Care Directive • Deeds and Property Documents
Check names, addresses, successor trustees, beneficiaries, and other information to make sure the documents continue to reflect your current circumstances.
What If Changes Are Needed?
Some changes may require new documents or amendments to existing documents. The appropriate documents depend upon the changes you want to make and your individual circumstances.
If you already know the changes you want made, TEAM Legal Document Services can prepare your legal documents at your direction.
As a California Legal Document Assistant, TEAM Legal Document Services provides self-help legal document preparation services. We are not attorneys and cannot provide legal advice. If you need advice about what changes you should make, how those changes affect your estate plan, or which legal documents are appropriate for your situation, you should consult a qualified attorney.
A Good Time to Take Another Look
If it has been several years since you looked at your living trust and related documents, consider taking them out and reviewing them. You may find that everything still reflects your wishes—or you may discover names, property, beneficiaries, or other information that should be updated.
Keeping your documents current can help ensure that the estate plan you created years ago still reflects your circumstances today.