Do You Have To Disinherit Your Ex-Spouse When You Get Divorced?
The general principle of estate planning is that, when you write your will, you can leave property to anyone you choose and disinherit anyone you choose. If you disinherit close relatives, they have a chance to challenge your will during probate, but the burden of proof is on the disinherited family members to persuade the probate court why it should not follow the instructions in your will as written. The only person who can mess with your estate plan is your spouse. A disinherited spouse can claim an elective share of your estate, which is 30 percent of the estate. This is why, if you don’t want your spouse to claim an elective share, you should sign a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement in which each spouse waives the right to claim an elective share of the other spouse’s estate during probate. Can your ex-spouse mess with your estate if you are already divorced? We have all heard the horror stories about estranged couples where one spouse died the day before the court was supposed to finalize the divorce and the other spouse inherited the lion’s share of the estate, but what about if the divorce is already final? Things get complicated with ex-spouses and estate plans. If you have not updated your estate plan since the court finalized your divorce, contact a Tampa estate planning lawyer.
How Does Divorce Change a Pre-Existing Estate Plan?
You can probably find fearmongering web content and instigating relatives who will tell you your ex-spouse can and will continue to wreck your finances even after you die, but this is somewhere between an exaggeration and entirely false. Some aspects of your estate plan automatically change when your divorce becomes final. For example, if you have a revocable trust, the law automatically removes your ex-spouse as a trustee or beneficiary if you get divorced, even before you modify the trust instrument. If you don’t update your will after you get divorced, and your family brings it to the probate court, the probate court will interpret your will the same way it would if you were widowed. The only way that divorce does not change your ex-spouse’s claim on property that you willed to him or her during your marriage is if you designated your spouse as a transfer on death (TOD) or payable on death (POD) beneficiary of an account. Divorce does not change TOD and POD beneficiary designations.
What if you want your ex-spouse to inherit from you? That is your prerogative. The best way to ensure that the probate court knows that this is what you want is to write a new version of your will mentioning your ex by name and clearly indicating that he or she is your former spouse but is still entitled to the assets you want him or her to inherit.
Contact David Toback About Estate Planning After Divorce
A Central Florida estate planning lawyer can help you update your estate plan if you divorced recently or not so recently. Contact David Toback in Tampa, Florida to set up a consultation.
Source:
msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/relationships/we-divorced-and-got-closer-than-ever-we-ve-left-each-other-everything-in-our-wills/ar-AA20ZWNX?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=69e377579665427891527176fb850de5&ei=27
