How Do You Know an Estate Plan Still Fits?

An estate plan can remain neatly stored while the life around it changes. A beneficiary dies, a child is born, an account moves, or the person named to help becomes unavailable. None of those events automatically adds an explanation to the documents in the folder.

Rather than ask only whether the plan is old, I would ask what has changed since the last meaningful review.

Begin with the people

Write down changes involving spouses, children, beneficiaries, executors, trustees, and agents. Include practical changes such as distance, health, or willingness to serve. The same name can still appear in a document while no longer being a sensible choice.

Some changes also have legal consequences. Iowa Code section 633.267 addresses children born or adopted after a will is executed. A family change should therefore be described accurately to counsel rather than handled with a guess that an old phrase covers everyone.

Then compare the records

Gather the current will, trust and amendments, powers of attorney, property information, and beneficiary confirmations. Check whether the institutions and documents appear to describe the intended arrangement. Record discrepancies without trying to correct every one through the same method.

For example, an outdated phone number needs a practical update. A new distribution wish may require a legal amendment. A trustee vacancy can involve the trust and the process in section 633A.4105. Those are different tasks even if discovered during the same afternoon of organizing.

Test one difficult day

Imagine you could not handle finances tomorrow. Would the appropriate person know where to find the document and how to begin? Now imagine that person cannot serve either. The successor arrangements, including those contemplated by section 633B.111 for financial agents, deserve attention before they are needed.

Then consider a death. Could the person handling the estate identify the major property and the current documents without relying on an unexplained pile of copies?

The result of a review can be a short question list: an account to confirm, an appointment to reconsider, an instruction to discuss with the attorney. That is useful progress. A plan still fits when its legal directions and practical arrangements continue to work for the actual people and property involved.

Tyler ThompsonAuthor