Divorce is a milestone that requires recalibration of many things, particularly your finances. Whether you’re already divorced or planning to be, adjusting your estate plan should be top of mind.
An experienced estate planning attorney can guide you through the process of correcting important documents so they reflect your current situation. Your attorney will ensure that your estate planning documents complement rather than conflict.
Critical Estate Documents to Update After Your Divorce
When a divorce is finalized in Illinois, certain documents are automatically considered revised to exclude your former partner. Other documents related to your estate should be reviewed and updated, including guardianship plans for minor children.
Certain aspects of your estate documents are automatically changed when you are divorced. These include:
- Your will. The Illinois Probate Act (755 ILCS 5/4-7(b)), disregards all gifts or bequests that are conveyed to your ex-spouse in your will. If you decide those items or accounts should still be theirs, you may revise your will after your divorce to reinstate them as a beneficiary.
- Living trusts. State law relating to trust codes in Illinois (760 ILCS), automatically revokes your ex-spouse’s eligibility to be a beneficiary or trustee of your living trust. Your trust documents can be modified to reinstate them after your divorce, if desired.
These state laws should prompt most people to review and update their estate documents. Knowing which to revise is important, because some are easy overlooked, such as beneficiary designations.
Review and Update Key Documents
- Will. Your former spouse is automatically disregarded by state probate court as a beneficiary per state law, but you may reconsider the person named as your estate executor or the guardian designated for your minor children.
- Trusts. Review the beneficiaries and related information contained in your living trust. Is your former spouse named elsewhere, such as a trustee or in your power of attorney for healthcare? Also note that minor children can be named as beneficiaries of a trust that is structured to provide payouts to them over time, until a specific age.
- Beneficiary Designations. State law removes your former spouse as a beneficiary of your will or living trust, but it does not change the beneficiary designation on any other accounts, such as savings, 401(k), life insurance, or investment accounts. Unless beneficiaries are specifically changed to be your irrevocable trust, your children, or a new spouse, it may still be your ex-spouse, and they will be eligible to receive the proceeds of any account on which they are named as beneficiary.
- Powers of Attorney. If you have created powers of attorney that names your former spouse as your healthcare, financial, or business proxy those documents should be rescinded and new POAs created.
Guardianship and Financial Appointments
It may be time to reconsider the person you’ve designated as potential guardian of your minor children, which is easily addressed with a new will. Their surviving parent is likely to be their primary guardian, but in the event that both parents are deceased, probate court gives special consideration to a person named as guardian in the parent’s will.
Likewise, changing trustee designations to a new, trusted friend, partner, or family member will preserve your vision for your estate.
Timing Matters: When to Make These Changes
Coordinating your documents to reflect your new status is a smart decision, but don’t do it too soon. Courts may require that changes wait until the divorce is final (including any state-mandated “cooling off” period).
An Ally for Life’s Changes
Consulting a qualified Illinois lawyer from Legacy & Life Law Firm can help ensure that your estate plan is legally sound, aligned with your current life situation, and designed to reflect what matters most to you.