The term “blended family” applies to families where people have remarried and have children from previous relationships. Blending families together is no small feat: it takes time, care, and vulnerability. It is a celebratory moment when two families become one. Often lost in the celebration, however, is the realization that it is now time to update your estate plan.
Creating an estate plan for a blended family may be a daunting task, as you now have to consider the needs of sometimes twice as many people! However, updating your estate plan is a vital part of ensuring your loved ones are cared for in the event of your incapacity or passing.
What Makes Estate Planning with Blended Families So Complex?
Blended families have a unique family structure—you have yourself, your current spouse, any children from your own previous marriage, children from your current spouse’s previous partnership, and any potential children you have with your current spouse. This unique family structure can emphasize concerns about inheritance size, naming an executor for your will or trustee of your trust, and overall fairness regarding how your assets will be divided.
The best estate plan is one that takes each family relationship into account and avoids these common mistakes:
Forgetting to Update Your Estate Plan
The first common mistake is not updating, or creating, your estate plan. After a divorce, many forget to update their estate plan to reflect any new final wishes—and then forget again after remarrying. It is important to remember that any big life events—births, deaths, divorces, marriages, or an inheritance in your family—raise the need to update or even create an estate plan. However, if you have a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement from your prior marriage, make sure that it does not prevent you from making any changes to your estate plan.
Forgetting to Update Your Beneficiary Designations
In addition to forgetting to update their estate plan, people going through a divorce often forget to update their beneficiary designations outside of their will or trust—such as retirement accounts and insurance policies.
Regardless of what a will or trust says, these specific assets transfer directly to the beneficiary designations on these accounts. Often, the prior spouse of a divorcee is named as the beneficiary on these accounts, since they forgot to change it after remarrying. This can lead to turmoil after your passing among your current spouse, past spouse, and any children in your blended family.
Letting Your Current Spouse and Children “Talk It Out”
It is common for an individual to leave their entire estate to their current spouse and assume one of three things: their current spouse will distribute the assets fairly, they will adhere to a privately discussed plan or that their current spouse and their children will “talk it out.” This plan only sounds great in theory, but instead it only leads to issues:
- Your current spouse decides not to follow what you discussed. Your current spouse has full control over your assets. This means that whatever plan you discussed with your current spouse, or what you thought was a fair distribution, carries the risk of not being respected.
- Their actions are found to be objectionable
- Forgetting to name secondary beneficiaries. Naming your current spouse as primary beneficiary and forgetting to name secondary beneficiaries can lead to the loss of assets in probate if your current spouse passes away after you. This means that the court will assume responsibility for administering your estate and will follow state law in order to decide how your assets will be distributed.
Without a clear and detailed estate plan that names your exact hopes for your assets, after your passing it is not an outlandish idea that someone may contest your will, believing that it was unfairly divided, incorrect, or that there was undue influence over your final decisions. This can lead to a lengthy and stressful period of estate litigation, breaking apart a blended family you worked hard to join together.
What Is the Biggest Mistake Someone Could Make?
Not consulting a legal professional! Legal professionals—like our attorneys at Giro & Associates, LLC.—can help you make the best decisions for your unique blended family. The right attorney can help you navigate through difficult times and help you make the right decisions that leave your final wishes best represented, saving your family money, heartache, and time upon your passing.
If you need assistance with estate planning for a blended family or unique circumstances, call our River Edge, New Jersey Law Office at 201-502-7834, or send us a message on our website with a brief description of your situation, and we will get back to you.