It is time to move on with your life through a divorce. That decision creates an instant change in your life, but also in your future. Your objectives, financial plans, and even who you name as heirs may change. For divorce and estate planning in New Jersey, put your trust in Jersey Coast Family Law. We will help you consider how this divorce will impact your estate plan and what legal rights you have to make adjustments. As October is National Estate Planning Month, it’s a good time to reassess your estate plan if you’re considering or going through a divorce.

Before, during and after your divorce, you need to consider how and when to update your estate plan, including adjusting beneficiaries, powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, and trust designations. Legally, this means you can make decisions now that may change in the future. If you fail to make updates, the divorce does not automatically change your estate plan, and your spouse could still receive or have the control you previously gave to them within your estate plan.

Several factors must be considered throughout this process. Our New Jersey family lawyer can create strategies specific to your situation.

Update Beneficiary Designations

One of the first steps is to update your beneficiaries, such as those on retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and payable-on-death accounts. It’s essential to ensure the right people, like your children or other family members, inherit your assets. With the help of your attorney, you need to consider updating your beneficiary to reflect who it should be, which may include a child instead of your spouse or another party.

Some of the most important accounts to review and update include the following:

  • Retirement accounts
  • Life insurance policies
  • Payable-on-death accounts

If you have any investment account that names a specific person to inherit the assets or take ownership over them at the time of your death – whether it is your business or your term life insurance policy – you need to update that information now.

Reassessing Healthcare Proxies and Power of Attorney

The next factor to consider is healthcare proxy changes in divorce. These are necessary after divorce unless you want your spouse to make your medical decisions for you, which is most often no longer the case.

Determine, then, who you want to make key decisions for you if it is no longer your spouse. This may include:

  • Medical decisions for you in situations where you cannot make decisions for yourself
  • Financial decisions for you if you cannot do so
  • End-of-life decisions

By updating our healthcare proxies and power of attorney documents, you ensure that only someone you trust is making such incredible decisions for you. This person should agree to this process, meaning they should understand the importance of these decisions to you and be willing to carry out your wishes. Consider an adult child, family member, or friend you trust.

Revising Trusts and Guardianship Designations

This is also a good time to reflect on any trusts or guardianship destinations in place. Your intentions may be different. Your goals may be substantially different than they used to be as well. You may wish to exclude an ex-spouse from control over any of your assets.

In situations related to parents of minor children or adult children with disabilities who cannot make decisions for themselves, evaluating guardianship designations is quite important. Guardianship designations do not supersede custody arrangements made but rather apply when both parents are unable to care for the child, such as due to an accident. In these decisions, you may want to ensure the guardianship designation aligns with custodial arrangements, especially if there are conflicts with existing guardianships.

Inheritance planning allows you to make key decisions. Work with your attorney to consider how a new family structure may change your goals and objectives moving forward. For example, revising trusts post-divorce is necessary if you no longer want to include your ex-spouse in the trust management.

Alternatively, now may be the perfect time to establish trusts and guardianship to better structure and protect your future. Whereas you may not have had an estate plan that names who will make decisions for you, assuming your spouse would, now you need to do so. Discuss your rights, goals, and new objectives with our attorney now.

How Our Divorce New Jersey Attorneys Can Help You

Updating beneficiaries after a divorce, navigating power of attorney decisions, and transferring trusts are incredible decisions that impact your future and your decisions. This is not something to put off for later but to put in place now, even before the divorce is finalized. There are several key ways our legal team can help you with this process:

  • Determine what updates must be made and offer insight into the legal options available to you for making those updates
  • Considering changes that your divorce may make a place on your current trusts and the value of your assets, and then determining how that may impact your future estate plan objectives
  • Provide you with the legal steps necessary to update beneficiaries or others about their new rights or changes to your objectives
  • Help you to create legally binding agreements that meet all requirements within the court, ensuring your wishes can be carried out
  • Providing you with peace of mind so you know that your family is well cared for after your divorce and, in situations of your death

These are not easy decisions, but they are easier to make once you know what your legal rights are. Let us help you through that process.

Contact Our Family Law Attorneys Now

At Jersey Coast Family Law, we put you first. Call us at 732-361-4718 about your divorce-related estate planning needs, revising trusts post-divorce, updating beneficiaries to your will, or taking other steps to protect your future. Contact us now to schedule a consultation in our Toms River and Red Bank offices.

We serve clients in Ocean and Monmouth Counties, and throughout New Jersey.
732-361-4718

Check out our other blogs: October Is Domestic Violence Awareness Month: A Call to Action in New Jersey.

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