Your Kids Are Back in School. Is Your Estate Plan Back in Order? 7 Things Virginia Families Should Review This Fall
Fall Is a Good Time to Make Sure Your Estate Plan Still Matches Your Life
September has a way of bringing structure back to life.
The kids are back in school. Summer travel is winding down. Calendars fill up again. Families settle back into routines, and suddenly all of those things that were going to get done “after summer” start making their way back onto the list.
Your estate plan should probably be one of them.
Because creating an estate plan is not something you do once and forget about for the next 20 or 30 years.
Your family changes.
Your finances change.
Your health changes.
Your children grow up.
People move, marry, divorce, retire, become grandparents, buy property, sell businesses, lose loved ones, and take on entirely new responsibilities.
But the documents sitting in the filing cabinet do not change along with you.
At The Legacy Elder Law Center, we encourage Virginia families to think of estate planning as an ongoing process rather than a one-time transaction.
You may already have a Will, Trust, Power of Attorney, or Advance Medical Directive.
The better question this fall is:
Do those documents still reflect the life you’re living today?
Here are seven things worth reviewing.
1. When Was the Last Time You Actually Read Your Estate Plan?
Start with the simplest question.
When did you last open your estate planning documents and read them?
Not when were they signed.
When did you actually review what they say?
If you cannot remember, that is a good reason to pull them out.
Look at the people you’ve named.
Look at how assets are supposed to pass.
Look at who would be responsible for managing your estate.
Look at who you’ve authorized to make financial and healthcare decisions.
Then ask yourself:
Would I make all of these same decisions today?
An estate plan created 10 years ago may have been exactly right for the family you had 10 years ago.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for the family you have now.
We explored this issue in more detail in our article Your Estate Plan Has an Expiration Date: 10 Signs It No Longer Matches Your Life. If it has been several years since your last review—or life has changed substantially since then—your plan deserves another look.
2. Are the People You’ve Chosen Still the Right People?
Estate planning involves much more than deciding who receives your property.
You are also choosing people to take on significant responsibilities.
Depending on your plan, you may have named:
- An executor
- A trustee
- A financial agent under a Power of Attorney
- A healthcare agent
- Guardians for minor children
- Successor agents or trustees
Think about each person today.
Are they still willing to serve?
Are they physically and mentally able to take on the responsibility?
Do you still trust their judgment?
Do they live somewhere that makes serving unnecessarily difficult?
Has your relationship changed?
Has the person died?
A sibling who seemed like the obvious executor 15 years ago may now live across the country.
A parent you once named as a backup decision-maker may now need assistance themselves.
An adult child who was 19 when you created your plan may now be 35, financially responsible, and perfectly capable of serving.
Estate planning should reflect who people are today, not who they were when the documents were originally signed.
3. Are Your Powers of Attorney and Healthcare Documents Still Right?
Some of the most important estate planning documents have nothing to do with what happens after death.
They matter while you’re alive.
A Durable Financial Power of Attorney can give someone you trust legal authority to handle financial matters if you become unable to manage them yourself.
An Advance Medical Directive can document your healthcare preferences and allow you to appoint someone to make healthcare decisions if you become incapable of making an informed decision.
Under Virginia law, an adult capable of making an informed decision may create a written advance directive addressing future healthcare and appoint an agent to make healthcare decisions under specified circumstances.
The National Institute on Aging’s guidance on advance care planning also recommends continuing these conversations and updating advance-directive documents as circumstances and preferences change.
Ask yourself:
- Is my financial agent still the person I trust?
- Is my healthcare agent still appropriate?
- Have my wishes changed?
- Does my family know where these documents are?
- Does the person I’ve appointed know that I’ve chosen them?
- Are my backup agents still appropriate?
Having the document is important.
Having the right person named in the document is just as important.
4. Do Your Beneficiary Designations Match Your Estate Plan?
This is an easy area to overlook.
Your Will or Trust may say one thing while beneficiary designations on individual accounts say something else.
Retirement accounts and certain other assets can have their own beneficiary designations, which makes reviewing those designations an important part of the larger planning conversation.
Life events are particularly good times to check them.
For example, the IRS specifically advises retirement-plan participants to review and potentially update beneficiaries after marriage or the addition of children.
Review beneficiary designations on accounts such as:
- 401(k)s
- IRAs
- Employer retirement plans
- Life insurance policies
- Other accounts with payable-on-death or transfer-on-death instructions
Then compare those choices with the rest of your estate plan.
This can become particularly important after:
Marriage. Divorce. Births. Deaths. Remarriage. Blended families.
Do not assume that updating your Will automatically updated everything else.
5. If You Have a Trust, Is It Actually Funded?
Creating a trust and funding a trust are two different things.
This is one of the most important concepts for families using trust-based estate planning.
Signing a trust document does not necessarily mean every asset you intended to have governed by that trust has actually been transferred or coordinated appropriately.
You may have purchased a new home.
Opened a new financial account.
Refinanced property.
Received an inheritance.
Sold one asset and replaced it with another.
Any of those changes may create a reason to review how your assets are currently owned and whether they still align with your trust plan.
This is why estate planning should include more than reviewing the words in your documents.
You also need to review how your actual assets fit into the plan.
If you created a trust years ago but have not looked at it since, fall is a good time to ask:
Is everything that is supposed to work with my trust actually coordinated with it?
6. Have Your Children Grown Up Since You Created the Plan?
Parents tend to notice childhood milestones.
First day of kindergarten.
First driver’s license.
High-school graduation.
College move-in day.
What is easier to miss is how those milestones can change your estate-planning needs.
Maybe your children were minors when your estate plan was created.
Now they’re adults.
Maybe your original plan was primarily focused on guardianship and protecting an inheritance for young children.
Today, those children may have careers, spouses, homes, or children of their own.
Or perhaps one child has developed circumstances that require more careful planning.
Your family may now include:
- Grandchildren
- Stepchildren
- Sons- or daughters-in-law
- A loved one with a disability or special needs
- Children with very different financial circumstances
- Adult children who are now capable of serving as agents, executors, or trustees
Your estate plan should evolve along with those relationships.
And if you’ve just sent a child to college, remember that turning 18 creates another important planning milestone. Your college student is now a legal adult, which is why families should consider appropriate financial and healthcare authorization documents for them as well.
7. Has Your Life Changed in a Way Your Documents Don’t Know About?
Sometimes you do not need to analyze every paragraph of an estate plan to know it needs attention.
You just need to look at what has happened since you signed it.
Consider whether you’ve experienced any major changes, including:
- Marriage or remarriage
- Divorce
- Birth or adoption
- Birth of grandchildren
- Death of a spouse or beneficiary
- Retirement
- A major health diagnosis
- Significant changes in assets
- Buying or selling real estate
- Starting or selling a business
- Moving to Virginia from another state
- Becoming a caregiver for an aging parent
- A child reaching adulthood
- Changes in family relationships
- A beneficiary developing special needs
- Changes in your long-term-care concerns
These events do not automatically mean every estate planning document must be replaced.
They do mean it’s worth asking whether the plan still accomplishes what you intended.
For example, the IRS specifically advises retirement-plan participants to review beneficiary designations after the death of a spouse.
Your estate planning attorney can help determine which changes actually require action and which do not.
Estate Planning Isn’t Just About What Happens After You Die
One reason families put off reviewing their plans is that estate planning can feel distant.
But some of its most important protections are designed for circumstances that can happen during your lifetime.
What if you become seriously ill?
What if an accident leaves you temporarily unable to manage your finances?
What if your spouse needs someone else to communicate with doctors?
What if an adult child suddenly needs to step in and help?
The National Institute on Aging explains that advance care planning involves preparing for future medical decisions in case you become seriously ill or unable to communicate your wishes.
Virginia’s advance-directive law similarly allows adults to document healthcare instructions and appoint an agent for circumstances in which they can no longer make an informed decision themselves.
A good estate plan therefore answers two different questions:
What should happen when I die?
And:
What should happen if I’m still here but need someone to help me?
Both matter.
Why Fall Is a Smart Time for an Estate Plan Review
There is nothing magical about September from a legal perspective.
But practically?
It makes a lot of sense.
Summer is ending.
Families are getting organized again.
The holidays are still a few months away.
And there is enough time to address questions before another year disappears.
Fall also tends to bring families together.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and other gatherings may be some of the few times during the year when parents, adult children, siblings, and grandchildren are all in the same place.
You don’t need to turn Thanksgiving dinner into an estate planning meeting.
But knowing your plan is current—and knowing the right people understand their roles—can make those family conversations much easier.
A Simple Fall Estate Planning Checklist
If you’re wondering where to begin, start here:
Pull out your current estate planning documents and review:
- Your Will
- Your Trust, if applicable
- Durable Financial Power of Attorney
- Advance Medical Directive
- Beneficiary designations
- Executor and trustee selections
- Financial and healthcare agents
- Guardianship choices, if applicable
- How major assets are titled
- Whether trust funding still aligns with your plan
- Where original documents are stored
The National Institute on Aging also provides a helpful checklist for getting legal and financial affairs in order for families who want to organize important information before a medical emergency or other major life event.
You do not have to solve every issue yourself.
The goal of reviewing your documents is simply to identify the questions worth asking.
Frequently Asked Questions About Updating an Estate Plan in Virginia
Q: How often should I review my estate plan?
There is no single review schedule that fits every family. A practical approach is to review your plan periodically and whenever there is a significant change in your family, finances, health, property, or planning goals.
Even when no major changes have occurred, periodically reading your documents helps ensure you still understand and agree with the decisions you previously made.
Q: What life events should trigger an estate plan review?
Marriage, divorce, remarriage, births, deaths, retirement, major health changes, significant changes in wealth, buying or selling property, moving to another state, changes involving a business, and children reaching adulthood are all good reasons to review your plan.
The event does not necessarily mean you need new documents. It means you should determine whether your existing documents still work.
Q: Do I need to update my Will if my children are now adults?
Possibly.
A plan created when your children were young may contain provisions designed specifically for minor children, including guardianship nominations or restrictions on when and how an inheritance is distributed.
Once those children become adults, you may want to reconsider their roles and how your estate plan treats them.
Q: Does updating my Will automatically change my beneficiaries?
Not necessarily.
Accounts with beneficiary designations may operate according to those designations rather than instructions elsewhere in your estate plan. Retirement accounts are an important example, which is why beneficiary reviews should be part of your overall estate-planning review.
Q: Should I review an estate plan created in another state?
Yes.
If you have moved to Virginia since creating your estate plan, having a Virginia attorney review your existing documents can help determine how they interact with Virginia law and whether updates would better accomplish your current goals.
Do not assume that moving automatically makes every existing document invalid—but do not assume nothing needs attention either.
Q: Do I need an estate plan review if nothing major has changed?
It can still be worthwhile.
People often discover during a review that a named agent is no longer appropriate, a beneficiary designation was forgotten, a newly acquired asset was never coordinated with a trust, or their wishes have simply changed over time.
Sometimes a review confirms that everything is still exactly how you want it.
That is useful information too.
Q: What documents should I bring to an estate plan review?
Bring your existing Will, Trust, Powers of Attorney, Advance Medical Directive, and any amendments or related estate planning documents.
It can also be helpful to gather current information about major assets, real estate, retirement accounts, insurance policies, beneficiary designations, and significant changes in your family since the plan was created.
You don’t need to have everything perfectly organized before asking for help.
Put Your Estate Plan on the Fall Checklist
Your estate plan does not need attention because September arrived.
It needs attention because your life keeps moving even when your documents don’t.
The Will you created when your children were small may no longer reflect the family sitting around your dinner table today.
The person you named as your financial agent may no longer be the best choice.
The Trust you carefully created may need attention after years of buying, selling, inheriting, and moving assets.
And the healthcare decisions you made years ago may deserve another conversation.
This fall, before the holidays arrive and another year slips by, take an hour and pull out your estate plan.
Read it.
Look at the names.
Look at the dates.
Think about everything that has changed.
Then ask one question:
If something happened tomorrow, would this plan still do what I want it to do?
If you’re not sure, that’s a good reason to have it reviewed.
Schedule an Estate Planning Review
The Legacy Elder Law Center helps Virginia families create, review, and update estate plans designed around their current lives and long-term goals.
Whether your documents are a few years old, were prepared in another state, or have been sitting untouched for decades, you don’t have to determine what needs changing on your own.
