If your family needed to use your estate plan tomorrow, would they know what to do?
Having signed documents is an important start. Your plan also needs to reflect your current wishes, name people who can serve, and work with the way you own your assets.
As Estate Planning Awareness Week comes to a close, take a few minutes to review these five areas. You do not need to solve everything today. The goal is to identify what needs attention and take the next step.
1. Do Your Documents Still Reflect Your Life?
Pull out your will, trust, financial power of attorney, and advance directive. Check when they were signed and whether anything important has changed since then.
A review is especially helpful after a marriage, divorce, birth, death, move, home purchase, or significant change in finances. Changes in a beneficiary’s health or ability to manage money may also affect your instructions.
Ask yourself:
- Does my plan still leave property to the people I intend?
- If I have minor children, are my guardian nominations current?
- Have I addressed children from a prior relationship?
- Have any beneficiaries developed needs that my existing plan does not address?
Planning for incapacity deserves attention too. A will addresses what happens after death. A financial power of attorney and an advance directive address different decisions during life. Oregon’s advance directive allows you to name a health care representative and communicate your wishes about care.
Your next step: Write down changes you want to discuss before marking up or replacing any signed documents.
2. Are the Right People Named to Help?
The person you chose years ago may no longer be able or willing to serve.
Review your personal representative, successor trustee, financial agent, health care representative, and any nominated guardian. These roles involve different responsibilities. The best person to handle financial records may not be the best person to make medical decisions.
Consider availability, judgment, organization, and the ability to work with other family members. Location can matter, but so can the demands of someone’s own work, health, and family.
Also check your backups. A plan can become difficult to administer if everyone named has died, become unavailable, or declined to serve.
Your next step: Confirm that your first choices and backups remain appropriate, and let them know you have named them.
3. Does Your Asset Ownership Match Your Plan?
If you have a revocable living trust, check whether the intended assets were actually transferred to it.
Signing a trust does not, by itself, change the ownership of your home or financial accounts. A home purchased after the trust was created, an account opened at a new bank, or property refinanced years later deserves a closer look.
Assets left outside the trust may require probate, depending on ownership, beneficiary arrangements, and other circumstances. The Oregon State Bar emphasizes that transferring assets to the trustee is central to using a revocable living trust to avoid probate.
This does not mean every asset should be retitled into your trust. Retirement accounts, in particular, require separate consideration of ownership, beneficiaries, and tax consequences.
Your next step: Gather your current deed and recent account statements so your attorney can compare ownership with the intended plan.
4. Have You Checked Your Beneficiary Designations?
Do not rely on memory. Request or download the current beneficiary information for retirement accounts, life insurance, and other accounts with beneficiary designations.
These assets often pass under the account or policy arrangements rather than under your will. Updating your will does not automatically update those forms.
Check:
- Primary and contingent beneficiaries
- Names and allocation percentages
- Whether a deceased person is still listed
- Whether designations remain appropriate after marriage or divorce
- Whether a minor child or a person receiving needs-based benefits is named directly
Naming a trust may be appropriate in some circumstances, but it requires coordination. For retirement accounts, beneficiary choices can affect distribution requirements and taxes.
Your next step: Collect the current designations and review them alongside your estate planning documents before making changes.
5. Could Your Family Find What They Need?
A carefully prepared plan is harder to use if nobody knows where it is.
Your trusted decision-makers should know where to find signed documents, whom to contact, and how to identify the assets and obligations that need attention.
Prepare a practical list of:
- Document storage locations
- Your attorney, accountant, financial advisor, and insurance contacts
- Banks, retirement plans, insurance policies, and real estate
- Recurring bills and important household responsibilities
- Instructions for locating digital account information securely
You do not need to distribute passwords or account numbers in an ordinary email. Use a secure method and discuss appropriate access and legal authority with your advisors.
Your next step: Create a short “start here” instruction sheet and tell a trusted person where to find it.
Start with One Manageable Step
If several answers are “I am not sure,” start by gathering your documents and making a list of questions. A review does not necessarily mean replacing your entire plan. It may identify a few focused updates or unfinished steps.
At Hillsboro Law Group, we help Oregon families prepare and review wills, trusts, and estate plans. If you would like help determining whether your documents and assets still fit your goals, schedule a strategy session.
This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice. Estate planning recommendations depend on your family, assets, and circumstances.