3 Common Estate Planning Mistakes For Blended Families To Avoid
Blended families can be complicated. If you’re divorced, remarried, have stepchildren, share children with another partner, or otherwise have a blended family situation, you are likely used to navigating many of the complexities that arise in your daily life (such as the practical realities of shared custody). However, you may not be used to the legal steps you need to take in order to plan ahead and make sure that the future is secure for yourself and your loved ones.
Estate planning is challenging even for traditional families; for blended families, there are many common pitfalls that you may encounter if you are not careful to avoid them!
Why Do Blended Families Need An Estate Plan?
Estate plans are a collection of customized legal tools (such as wills, trusts, beneficiary designations, powers of attorney, and more) that make your wishes known and provide for the management and distribution of your assets, both during your lifetime and in the event of your death or incapacitation.
Really, everyone who owns property or has family needs an estate plan, regardless of their situation. Having a plan can help your loved ones avoid fighting amongst themselves over what you would have wanted. It can ensure that the right people inherit the right assets and possessions. It can protect your loved ones from having to go through probate (a time-consuming, expensive, stressful Texas court process).
Particularly if you are part of a blended family, though, having an estate plan is extra important. It will guarantee that your unique, individualized circumstances are accounted for. It can also answer questions that can give you and your family members clarity.
For example, if you have kids from a previous marriage, and you have remarried someone who also has kids, if you were to pass away tomorrow, who would inherit your possessions? Your spouse? Just your biological kids? All of the kids? Equally? Without an estate plan, your desires may not be honored by the state court even if your family had an idea of what you wanted to happen.
As El Paso estate planning and probate lawyers, we’ve seen firsthand how messy it can get when something happens to someone in a blended family (they pass away unexpectedly, they are injured and left incapacitated in an accident, etc.) and there wasn’t an estate plan created beforehand. Besides not creating one at all, here are some of the most frequently made mistakes we’ve seen blended families make when it comes to estate planning!
Common Mistake #1 – Not Updating Their Estate Plan When Their Life Changes
One of the most common estate planning mistakes for blended families to avoid is “setting and forgetting” an estate plan – never making any changes once it has been initially drafted. Life events like the birth of a new child, a wedding, a move to a different state, a divorce, a modification to a custody agreement or something else should prompt you to adjust every aspect of your estate plan in order to keep everything as up to date as possible! Otherwise, you risk unintended consequences like leaving assets to an ex-spouse or disinheriting a new child.
When we say “every aspect of your estate plan”, we mean it. It’s important to note that beneficiary designations on accounts do take precedence over those made in a will, which is surprising to many people. This means that if you update your will, but not your other beneficiary designations on things like your retirement accounts, life insurance accounts, etc., it may not matter what’s in your will at all. Same goes with other documents that may conflict with each other if they are not updated at the same time in accordance with your wishes.
Common Mistake #2 – Not Considering The Specific Needs Of All Family Members
Another of the common estate planning mistakes for blended families to avoid is not making specific provisions in your estate plan for different family members. You don’t have to treat everyone in your family equally, and you probably should not, depending on your situation! For example, if you remarry in middle age or retirement, and your new spouse moves into your house, you may want to arrange it so that when you pass away, both your children and your spouse benefit from the house or house’s sale, or that just your children do, rather than just your spouse or your spouse and their children benefiting. If you have a child with an addiction, or who isn’t good with money, you may want to regulate the flow of assets or entrust them to another child or your spouse who you in turn trust to manage them well for the benefit of that child. If you have a child with special needs, you may need different estate planning tools to ensure that they are provided for for their whole lives. Making a generic plan that treats everyone the same or leaves some people out entirely could come back to cause conflict, family drama, and stress later on!
Common Mistake #3 – Not Working With A Lawyer To Create Or Manage Their Estate Plan
Taking a “DIY” approach to estate planning is never a great idea, but it can be especially problematic for blended families just because there is more complexity involved! Information or advice or downloadable templates you find online may not be accurate. They may not be up to date. They may not be compliant with Texas state laws. It’s possible (and unfortunately, happens all too often) that someone will try to make an estate plan themselves, and then when the time comes for it to be used, their families discover that it is invalid and essentially useless – or worse, causes more headaches than if it had never been made in the first place.
A local estate planning attorney has extensive familiarity with Texas estate planning laws and can help you navigate the process. They can review your financial situation, get to know your blended family dynamics, explain your options, select the best legal documents for you to have based on your goals, and then handle all of the paperwork for you. They can update your estate plan over the years so it is always current and enforceable. Working with a lawyer is the best way to get peace of mind!
At Villegas Law Firm, we truly care about your family and your future. Our managing attorney Jorge Villegas is also a Texas Certified Public Accountant who has over 15 years of legal experience helping all kinds of families in Texas – including blended families – plan ahead. No one is promised tomorrow, and you shouldn’t wait until it’s too late to get your affairs in order. Call our office today to learn more and schedule a free consultation!