For those who have gone through a divorce, consider the following questions:
- What happens if you die today? Does your ex-spouse receive all of your assets?
- Who takes care of your kids if both parents die?
- Do you want you ex-spouse in charge of any money or assets you intend to leave to your children?
- What happens if you get sick and need help managing your finances? Do you want your ex-spouse managing your money?
- What happens if you get sick and need someone to make your healthcare choices? Is that person going to be your ex-spouse? Would you rather it be someone else?
- Do you have an existing estate plan that needs to be revoked?
We can't tell you how many times we discover assets that would go to the ex-spouse, even years after a divorce was finalized. And the client was surprised to discover that even more money was going to their ex-spouse.
We can create an estate plan that addresses all of those questions.
For those still in the middle of the divorce...
If you're still in the middle of the divorce proceedings, you can still start planning now. But...
The filing of a divorce proceeding in California creates an injunction against transferring community assets without written consent of the other party or order of the court (such as putting property into trust or changing a beneficiary designation on an insurance policy or retirement account).
We can still create your estate plan, but we may have to wait to transfer certain assets (such as the house) until the divorce is finalized. Creating your plan now, even if we can't fully fund it now, is important because we are ensuring your ex-spouse doesn't get control over your assets if something happens to you before the divorce is finalized.