Life keeps moving, and an estate plan that fit your family perfectly a few years ago can quietly fall out of step. Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, and changes in the law all leave their mark. A plan that is never reviewed can end up doing something you never intended. The good news is that a checkup is straightforward once you know what to look for. Here are the things worth reviewing with your attorney so any changes can be made before they matter.
Have Your Children Reached Adulthood?
It feels like yesterday they were in diapers, but time moves fast. If your children are no longer minors, your plan probably needs an update. The guardian you once named to raise them no longer needs to be there. And now that they are adults, you may want the plan to reflect who they have become. If one child struggles with money or addiction, a trust that releases funds only for health, education, support, or welfare may serve them far better than a lump sum. If one child took a lower-paying calling like teaching or social work and another went into a high-paying field, you may want to weigh their inheritances by need. And if your children now have children of their own, you may want to bring your grandchildren into the plan.
Do You Need to Name Different Fiduciaries?
Your plan depends on the people you put in charge — your executor, trustee, and agents under your powers of attorney. If one of them has died, moved far away, changed their name, or is simply no longer willing or able to serve, the plan needs to be updated to name someone else. It is just as important to name alternates and to check, every so often, that those alternates are still available and willing. If your chosen fiduciary cannot serve when the time comes and you never named a backup, a court will appoint someone, and it may not be the person you would have picked.
Has Your Spouse Passed Away?
Reviewing your plan after the loss of a spouse is especially important. A few of the changes you may need to make:
- You likely named your spouse as a primary beneficiary of your will, trust, retirement accounts, and life insurance. Those beneficiary designations need to be updated.
- If your spouse was your successor trustee, your agent under a power of attorney, or your health care proxy, you need to name another trusted person for each of those roles.
- Tax issues deserve attention. If you and your spouse held a large amount of money and property, the estate of the deceased spouse may want to file a federal estate tax return (Form 706) within nine months of death to preserve their unused federal exemption for your later use — a choice known as portability. With the federal exemption at $15 million per person for 2026, that election can shelter a substantial amount. One important Illinois wrinkle: Illinois has its own estate tax with a $4 million exclusion and does not allow portability at all, so a surviving spouse cannot pick up an unused Illinois exclusion. That makes reviewing the plan after a death especially worthwhile here in Illinois.
- If you and your spouse owned real estate jointly with right of survivorship, the property passed to you automatically. A new deed is not required, but you may want to record the death certificate or an affidavit in the county real estate records to give notice of the transfer.
How Will the Rules on Retirement Accounts Affect Your Beneficiaries?
The SECURE Act changed the landscape for many people who inherit retirement accounts. If you named your children as beneficiaries, most of them now have to withdraw the entire balance within ten years of your death rather than stretching distributions over their lifetimes. That acceleration can push them into a higher tax bracket and eat into the inheritance more than you expected. If you set up a revocable living trust or a standalone retirement trust with conduit provisions, those structures may no longer give the long-term protection you wanted, because the trustee is now forced to pay everything out within that ten-year window. It is worth discussing alternatives, such as an accumulation trust, that can restore some of that protection.
While you are at it, confirm your beneficiary designation forms are filled out correctly. Make sure you have named a primary beneficiary — an individual or a trust — and that you have named contingent beneficiaries as well.
Do Not Sweep an Outdated Plan Under the Rug
If you let an outdated plan sit, the mess lands on your family at the hardest possible time. A checkup now spares them that. Whether your plan needs a small amendment or a fuller overhaul, we can review it with you and make the changes that keep it doing exactly what you want — both if you become unable to care for yourself and after you are gone. A current plan also makes the eventual probate and trust administration far smoother for the people you leave behind.
Learn more about how we handle estate planning, and reach out when you are ready for your checkup.
At Marvel Law, we are here to help with understanding, answers, and direction.