Life does not stay still, and neither should your estate plan. Marriage, divorce, and retirement each reshape your financial picture, your family dynamics, and your legal obligations in ways that most people underestimate. An outdated estate plan can leave the wrong people in charge, redirect assets to an ex-spouse, or leave a new family member without protection.
If you live in Putnam County and have recently gone through one of these milestones, now is the right time to take a closer look at your documents.
Why Life Changes Make Your Estate Plan Outdated
Major life events can instantly conflict with existing estate planning documents, leaving your assets and loved ones exposed to unintended outcomes.
Estate plans are not set-it-and-forget-it documents. They reflect your life at a specific moment in time. When that life changes, the plan often no longer reflects your actual wishes, your current relationships, or your financial situation.
New York law does provide some automatic protections when circumstances shift, but those protections are limited. Relying on them without reviewing your documents is a risk most families cannot afford to take.
Getting Married: What Needs to Change
Marriage in New York gives your spouse certain legal rights, but those rights may conflict with an existing estate plan that was written before the relationship.
When you marry, your spouse gains inheritance rights under New York’s Estates, Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL). If you die without a will, New York’s intestate succession laws give your spouse a significant share of your estate. But if you already have a will that does not name your new spouse, they have strong protections under New York law, including the statutory right of election—commonly associated with EPTL 5-1.1-A—which allows them to claim a minimum share of your net estate even if excluded by an outdated will.
Beyond the will itself, you should review and update:
- Beneficiary designations on life insurance policies, retirement accounts, and transfer-on-death accounts
- Your health care proxy and living will
- Your durable power of attorney
- Any trusts established before the marriage
Failing to update beneficiary designations is one of the most common and costly oversights. These designations pass assets outside of your will entirely, meaning an ex-partner or family member named years ago could receive those funds instead of your current spouse.
Divorce: Protecting Yourself Before and After the Final Decree
Divorce in New York automatically revokes certain provisions in your will naming your ex-spouse, but many important documents are not covered by this automatic rule.
Under EPTL 5-1.4, a final judgment of divorce in New York revokes any disposition or appointment of property made by will or certain non-probate beneficiary designations to a former spouse, along with nominations as executor or trustee. This is a meaningful protection, but it is not comprehensive.
Crucially, state automatic-revocation rules do not control all assets. Beneficiary designations on employer-sponsored retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, are governed by federal law under ERISA, which preempts state statutes like EPTL 5-1.4. As affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, an ex-spouse remaining on an ERISA plan beneficiary form will generally inherit those funds despite a state divorce decree.
During the divorce process, you should also revisit your power of attorney and health care proxy. If your soon-to-be ex-spouse holds these roles, they may still have legal authority over your finances and medical decisions until you formally revoke those documents and name someone new.
After the divorce is finalized, a thorough review of every document in your estate plan is not optional, it is essential.
Retirement: Aligning Your Estate Plan With Your New Financial Reality
Retirement changes your income, your asset mix, and often your family priorities — all of which require your estate plan to be reviewed and brought up to date.
Retirement is not just a career change. It often involves rolling over employer-sponsored retirement accounts, beginning required minimum distributions (RMDs) under IRS rules, and shifting from accumulation to distribution of assets. Each of these steps has estate planning consequences.
For example, the SECURE Act 2.0, signed into law in 2022, changed the age at which RMDs must begin and modified inherited IRA rules for non-spouse beneficiaries. If your estate plan includes trusts designed to stretch inherited IRAs across a beneficiary’s lifetime, those strategies may no longer work as intended under current federal law.
Retirement is also a time when many people move, downsize, or acquire property jointly with a partner. Real estate titles, joint ownership arrangements, and Medicaid planning considerations all deserve a fresh look at this stage. In New York, Medicaid eligibility for long-term care has specific asset and transfer rules that intersect closely with estate planning decisions made at retirement age.
How Often Should You Review Your Estate Plan?
At a minimum, review your estate plan every three to five years. Beyond that baseline, any of the following should trigger an immediate review:
- Marriage or remarriage
- Divorce or legal separation
- Death of a named beneficiary, executor, or trustee
- Retirement or a major shift in assets
- Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild
Putnam County residents should also keep an eye on changes to New York’s estate tax exemption, which differs from the federal exemption and can affect planning strategies for larger estates.
Work With The Feller Group, P.C. on Your Estate Plan Update
Estate planning documents are only as strong as they are up to date. At The Feller Group, P.C., we help Putnam County families review, revise, and rebuild estate plans that reflect where they are today, not where they were years ago. Whether you are newly married, recently divorced, or stepping into retirement, we are here to help you make sure your plan works the way you intend.
Call us at 845-682-5572 or visit our website to schedule a time to speak with our team.
