Just because you’ve gone through a divorce at a late age does not mean you’ll never find love again. This is the reality for many Texas seniors as they have been able to find love only a few years after their initial divorce. However, just like a divorce, the process of getting remarried should also be taken very seriously. This is especially true regarding your estate plan. It can be rather easy to forget to update your estate plan, which can greatly affect not only your children from your first marriage, but those new people coming into your new life. Therefore the following includes a few errors to avoid when planning your new estate plan.
Protecting your new spouse
In the event that you pass away before being able to craft your new estate plan, then most state laws will order all your assets to be transferred to your living children. As you may notice by that statement, it does not involve anything regarding your current spouse. This can become an issue if your children decide not to share any of your assets with them. This is why estate planning is incredibly important to not only your life but also the lives of those around you.
Failure to protect your children
When creating your new estate plan, it is important to protect your children as much as your spouse. This is because you want to ensure that the assets left behind when you pass benefit both your spouse and your children. You can achieve this by setting up a marital trust. Using a marital trust allows you to state specifically which funds/assets will go to your spouse and which go to your children.
Accidentally giving your ex-spouse retirement funds
One of the most common mistakes seniors who remarried make is forgetting to remove their ex-spouse from retirement accounts and company life-insurance plans. The fact is that it is simply not enough to remove them from your estate plan.
The process of remarrying should always be taken as seriously as a divorce. To increase the chances of having a successful transfer of benefits, it is important to bring on a personal attorney to look over any issues that may cause problems in the future.