Updating Estate Planning Documents

Often people will draft their documents and then forget about them, but this can be a bad idea and wreak havoc on your health and your family's wealth. 

Recently a Consumer Reports survey indicated the 86% of respondents who had wills or other estate documents had not updated them within the past five years. As circumstances change throughout the course of a lifetime, your documents should be updated accordingly. The Wall Street Journal lists the following key documents to evaluate for updates: 

• Wills
• Trusts
• Health-care directives
• Financial power of attorney

See Elizabeth O'Brien, Make Your Heirs Happy: Update Your Will, The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2013. 

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.