Posts Tagged ‘Tuesday Topics’

Tuesday Topic | When To Update Your Estate Plan in Michigan

Written by Christopher J. Berry, Esq. on November 11, 2008 – 2:33 pm -

Every Tuesday I have a meeting with other business people in the area and we each talk a few minutes about our practice.  As a Michigan estate planning lawyer I talked about the need to review your estate plan.  I was asked a question about how often to review your estate plan the night before as well.

What I told the group was that our firm believes in annual reviews of your estate plan.  We care very much about our clients and the hard work that was put into thier estate plan, we do not want their plan to fail due to a lack of maintenance.

Setting up an estate plan is not a “one-and-done” propostion.  Just like going to the dentist, an estate plan needs at least annual check ups.  Occasionally like a dentist there will be major work, such as an amendment to the plan.  But as a whole, only a few tune ups each year.

The reason for the need for check-ups is threefold.

  1. Your family situation may change.  There may be a new child to plan for, a divorce, marriage, etc.
  2. Your assets may change.  Have you added new bank accounts, bought a new house, new life insurance, etc?
  3. The laws change.  There have been many changes to both Michigan and Federal law in the past 10 years alone that effect estate planning.  With the new administration there is bound to be new Federal Estate tax laws as well.

So, have you updated your estate plan?  If you have an estate plan with another attorney, have they cared enough to contact you?

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