When your children were young, you may have looked forward to the day when they were old enough to take care of themselves. However, now that they are out of the house, you may feel a sense of emptiness that has nothing to do with the fact that your kids have left your Pennsylvania home. Of course, one potential benefit to having more time on your hands is that you have an opportunity to revisit your estate plan.
Potential benefits of estate plan reviews
Reviewing your estate plan on a regular basis allows you to find errors or catch other issues before they can cause serious problems for yourself or your beneficiaries. You may also decide that you no longer need a trust or other documents that may have seemed important before your kids went off on their own.
Your needs may change
You may decide to sell your home now that you don’t need as much space to live comfortably. If you were planning on passing your current home to your children in the future, you’ll need to adjust your estate plan to account for your change in circumstances. If you run into health problems in the future, you may need to use proceeds from the sale to pay medical bills, which means your children will have less to inherit.
Ideally, you will review or alter your estate plan after major life events such as the sale of a home or a medical emergency take place. Other significant life events may include the death of a spouse, a divorce or the birth of a grandchild. A trust or other plan documents may be able to ensure that resources are left behind to benefit any grandchildren you may have.
There is rarely a bad time to review your estate plan to ensure that it still meets your needs. A financial adviser or other professionals may be able to help you go through existing plan documents to determine if they need to be revoked or altered in any way.
