How Does Divorce Affect Estate Planning Strategies?
Divorce brings significant changes to your life, including estate plans. Because of this, timely updates are essential. In Marshfield, MA, reviewing wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations after divorce is important. Working with a divorce estate planning attorney in Marshfield, MA, will help ensure your estate plan is updated after a significant life change.
Have you just gotten divorced and are looking to update your estate plans? Read below to know what steps to take for peace of mind and prevent unintended outcomes when updating your estate plan after a divorce.
Quick Summary:
- Divorce can significantly impact your estate plan, affecting who inherits your assets and who can decide on your behalf. Without timely updates, a former spouse may unintentionally remain in key roles such as beneficiary, executor, or agent.
- Massachusetts law automatically revokes many references to a former spouse in wills and trusts once a divorce is finalized. However, not all documents are covered—beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts often require manual updates.
- Essential documents to revise after a divorce include your will, health care proxy, durable power of attorney, and any guardianship provisions. Taking early action—even before filing—can help ensure your wishes are protected throughout the divorce process.
- If you don’t have a will, state intestacy laws determine how your assets are distributed. A final divorce judgment in Massachusetts is required to disqualify an ex-spouse from inheritance under these laws.
- Life insurance and retirement accounts may not automatically reflect your divorce. ERISA-governed policies, for example, retain the named beneficiary unless changed—making it important to consult a divorce estate planning attorney in Marshfield, MA, to avoid costly oversights.
How Does Divorce Impact Estate Plans?
Divorce significantly alters the intentions laid out in your estate plan. Assets, decision-making authority, and beneficiary choices need revisiting. Without updating, former spouses retain control over inheritance rights. Reviewing and updating your estate plan after divorce in Marshfield MA ensures alignment with wishes. Taking action now can help protect your assets and loved ones in the future.
What Documents Should You Revise After a Divorce?
After a divorce, updating your estate planning documents is important. But what documents should you update? Many people are surprised to know how divorce affects wills and trusts in Massachusetts. This includes the automatic revocation of provisions.
Not all documents update themselves. Some require direct action. Lack of action retains your ex-spouse as a beneficiary, executor, or trustee. Review and revisit these documents if you’ve just gotten out of a divorce.
Wills
Filing for divorce doesn’t revoke your will automatically. In Massachusetts, even after attending court, there’s a mandatory waiting period of 3-4 months before finalization. This means that in this time frame, your soon-to-be ex-spouse can still inherit under your current will.
Health Care Proxy
Health care proxies allow someone else to make medical decisions for you. This includes treatment, surgery, or pain management choices. You probably don’t want a soon-to-be ex-spouse making those decisions, so updating this document early in the divorce process is smart.
Durable Power of Attorney
This document gives another person the authority to manage your financial affairs if you are incapacitated. They can do things like write checks, sell property, or handle investments on your behalf—essentially anything you could do yourself. If your current power of attorney names your spouse, you may want to change that before they continue handling your finances during a period of separation or disability.
How Can You Revise Your Estate Plan After a Divorce?
After a divorce, reviewing and revising an estate plan is essential. Your circumstances have changed, and certain conditions no longer apply. Many states revoke specific provisions involving a former spouse. This, however, doesn’t happen automatically. Updating documents ensures that asset distribution follows your wishes.
Here are the ways you can revise your estate plan after a divorce:
- Update Your Will: After a divorce, your will may still name your ex-spouse as a beneficiary. In many states, divorce revokes this. Despite this, it is still wise to create a new will to minimize confusion. Choosing new beneficiaries and naming a different executor will ensure alignment with present intentions.
- Create a New Power of Attorney: If an ex-spouse was designated to handle your decisions, it is wise to revoke that authority. Draft a new durable power of attorney naming a different trusted attorney-in-fact. This ensures that important matters, such as finances, are managed by someone aligned with your best interests.
- Update Your Health Care Directive: Advanced directives or health care proxies may have allowed your former spouse authority over medical decisions. After a divorce, remove them from these roles and name someone else you prefer.
- Review and Change Beneficiary Designations. Divorce doesn’t remove your former spouse from beneficiary designations. These designations override what’s written in your will. Updating them directly helps ensure your assets go to the right people.
- Reconsider Guardianship Provisions. If you named your former spouse as a guardian for your children, this is worth revisiting. Sometimes, an alternate guardian is handy if the ex-spouse is unable or unfit. Keeping these designations up to date ensures your children are cared for according to your wishes.
What is Massachusetts’ Law On Estate Planning and Divorce?
Massachusetts law makes specific provisions regarding divorce and its impact on estate planning. In most cases, any references to it are revoked when a divorce is finalized. This includes wills, trusts, and other legal documents. Actions like this prevent an ex-spouse from unintentionally remaining a beneficiary or decision-maker.
Massachusetts law makes specific provisions for how divorce impacts estate planning documents. In most cases, any references to a former spouse in wills, trusts, and other legal documents are automatically revoked once a divorce is finalized. This helps prevent an ex-spouse from unintentionally remaining a beneficiary or decision-maker. However, these automatic changes, such as certain beneficiary designations, don’t apply to every document. That’s why it’s important to review and update your estate plan after a divorce actively.
What Happens If You Don’t Have a Will?
Passing away without a will renders you intestate, meaning the state decides what happens to your assets. Instead of your personal wish guiding the process, the state follows intestate succession. Intestate succession determines who inherits what and in what proportion. It’s almost as if the state wrote your will.
After a divorce, an ex-spouse is no longer treated as a surviving spouse under intestate laws. For this to apply in Massachusetts, the couple must have a final divorce judgment.
When someone is married at the time of death, their spouse usually inherits most, if not all, of their estate. However, an ex-spouse is no longer treated as a surviving spouse under intestate laws after a divorce.
For this to apply in Massachusetts, the couple must have a final divorce judgment. RSA 560:19 states that if a couple was living apart due to actions justifying the divorce, the guilty spouse isn’t entitled to inherit unless the deceased specifically left them something in a will.
How Does Divorce Affect Life Insurance?
Revising your estate plan is important after divorce due to property transfers outside of probate. If your ex-spouse is listed as a life insurance beneficiary, it is a must to update it. Massachusetts divorce law revokes the ex-spouse’s right to life insurance benefits, which fall under ERISA rules.
It’s also worth noting that in Massachusetts, spouses can’t change life insurance beneficiaries while a divorce is still pending. This restriction exists because life insurance is often part of divorce negotiation, and it plays a role in alimony or child support arrangements. Judges may require policies to ensure continued support.
These complicated factors make consulting with a divorce estate planning attorney Marshfield, MA important.
Talk To A Divorce and Estate Planning Attorney Today!
Life presents many changes. Divorce is one of them. Have you ever considered who would decide for you if you and your partner split up? Ending a marriage doesn’t automatically update your estate plan. Your ex-spouse could still inherit your property in Massachusetts unless you make changes.
Some protections kick in upon finalization. However, key documents like the will, healthcare proxy, and power of attorney may still be in your former spouse’s name. Our divorce and estate planning attorneys in Massachusetts from Cote Law Group, PLLC can guide you towards the right path to ensure you retain and protect what is rightfully yours.
Marshfield, MA residents can reach out Cote Law Group, PLLC with concerns regarding estate planning, business law, and real estate law. Contact us today for a free consultation and to get clarity on your situation.
