Divorcing your one-time partner will undoubtedly have a dramatic effect on many areas of your life, and you may find yourself making some major changes with regard to your living situation, custody arrangements and so on. With everything you have going on, it can prove difficult to devote enough attention to other important matters, such as estate planning, but failing to amend or update your estate plan after a divorce can lead to considerable hardship down the line.
Chances are, your soon-to-be-former spouse has an important role when it comes to your estate plan, and you may no longer want this person having so much power over your affairs once you are no longer romantically involved. Thus, when navigating your way through a divorce, you may want to consider taking the following steps when it comes to updating your estate plan.
Update your power of attorney
If you are like most people of marrying age, you may have two different powers of attorney in place: one for your medical affairs, and one for your financial ones. If you have given the person you are divorcing power of attorney in either area, you may want to change this when you divorce. This may prove especially true if things have become ugly between you and your former partner and you do not want this person potentially accessing your bank accounts, medical history or what have you.
Update your will
It is highly common for married people to leave assets behind to their spouses, but again, you may not wish to do so any longer once your marriage ends. You may, instead, choose to leave the assets you once intended for your spouse to kids, friends or even charitable causes, but you will need to update your will to do so. Similarly, you may have named your spouse executor over your will during your marriage, and you may wish to name a new executor after your divorce.
While these are two key areas of your estate plan you may want to update after a divorce, please note that this is not a comprehensive list of all possible changes you may want to make.