By Boyd & Boyd, P.C. · Originally published 2025-06-18 · Revised October 4, 2026
How Often Should I Update My Estate Plan?
Review your Estate Plan when your family, assets, health, chosen decision-makers, residence, or the law changes. A review does not always require new documents; it determines whether your existing plan still fits.
Your Documents Describe a Moment. Your Family Keeps Changing.
A plan can accurately describe your wishes when you sign it and still need attention later. Someone you trusted to act may become unavailable. A new account may be opened in your individual name. A marriage, divorce, birth, or death may change whom you want to provide for. The question is whether the arrangements you made still match the people and property in your life.
Review People and Authority
Check your successor Trustees, Personal Representatives, financial agents, and Health Care Agents. Are they willing and able to serve? Do the backups still make sense? Review beneficiary provisions as well as the separate designations on retirement accounts and insurance. Do not assume a change to your Will changes those designations.
Review Ownership and Beneficiaries
Signing a Trust is separate from coordinating your assets with it. Review account ownership, real estate, beneficiary forms, and assets acquired since your last meeting. Different assets require different treatment. Retirement accounts, for example, should not simply be retitled into a living Trust as though they were ordinary bank accounts.
Review Before a Major Decision
If you are moving, selling a business, making a substantial gift, or changing family arrangements, raise the planning question before the transaction. The timing of advice can affect which choices remain available. Bring your existing documents and a list of changes to the conversation; avoid sending sensitive account information through a public download form.
Start With Understanding
The seminar slides below explain the decisions inside a Trust. Use them to identify questions for your own plan. The presentation is dated August 2025, and it is not a substitute for reviewing current law and your documents.
Sources and related reading
Make Your Next Question a Better One.
Get the August 2025 A Walk Through Your Trust seminar slides. Use them to prepare questions; current advice depends on your circumstances.
General educational information. State laws and tax rules vary. Representation requires a separate engagement with Boyd & Boyd, P.C.
