When you get a divorce, you probably are not thinking about your estate plan. However, forgetting about it is not a good idea. Your divorce creates a new life situation that will require quite a bit of change to your estate plan to ensure that it still follows your wishes.
Most people will leave the bulk of their estate to their spouse. Once you get divorced, you need to make changes so that your former spouse no longer has access to your assets should you die. Furthermore, you may have lost some assets in the divorce, so you will need to make changes for that as well. Forbes explains that after your divorce, you need to do a complete review of your estate plan.
Reassign decision-making power
You will want to reassess documents such as health care proxies and powers of attorney to assign new permissions. If you had your former spouse responsible for making decisions on your behalf, you will likely want to change that. You should consider who you wish to give these powers to and make the necessary changes.
Consider your divorce agreement
Make sure that your estate reflects any responsibilities from your divorce agreement. You need to make sure you meet the obligations that you agreed to in your divorce if there are any that will apply to your estate.
Make changes to your will
You want to give your will an overhaul since it likely was very kind to your former spouse. You may also want to make changes that will leave assets to your children. You may need to create new arrangements, such as a trust, to ensure your children get their inheritances.