Estate Planning Laws Change Frequently, Is Your Estate Plan Up-to-Date?

Estate Plans are not set it and forget it documents. If you haven't reviewed and updated your Estate Plan in the last five years, it's time to have a look. Learn more on this recent Local Five Live appearance.

Lisa Malak
Welcome back to Local Five Live. Planning for your future is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation.

Millaine Wells
Attorney Abigail Plankey is here from Hooper Law Office with some important reminders. Good morning to you, Abigail. You know, people sometimes think about an Estate Plan as something that you do and can just put away in the file. But families do really need to review these.

Attorney Abigail Plankey
Well, especially with Estate Planning. And when your Estate Plan is created, it's based around your needs and your family's needs at the time, but also where the law is at. So with Estate Planning, if your needs change, if the law changes, which it always, always does, it's just important to make sure that you're keeping up with those things as well.

Lisa Malak
What types of issues might families face if they're not regularly checking their Plan?

Attorney Abigail Plankey
A really common situation that I see is often parents create like their Will and plan for when their kids are minors, has a lot of that language, and then as they age, maybe their kids are adults now and have different needs. So it's focusing on planning not only for your needs and the needs of your spouse, but also what what do your kids need or what do your beneficiaries need. And that can really change with time. So you just want to make sure that you're meeting them where they're at, not necessarily where they were at 20 years ago or whatever it was that you did your plan.

Millaine Wells
So if a family determines that now is the time to take another look at this, how do they go about getting started or refreshing?

Attorney Abigail Plankey
Sure. A great thing is to contact the Attorney that originally did your plan. You provide them with where your circumstances are now. They can provide you with where the law is. And if your Attorney is no longer practicing, if you would like to get just a kind of second opinion on your plan, we're always happy at Hooper Law Office to review someone's existing plan and then kind of let you know about anything we'd recommend.

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