Happy Monday!

This week’s newsletter is coming to you on a Monday because we’re closed for the holiday (Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day) and I can’t stop working. :)

And, I thought today would be a good day to get some helpful information out there to all of you responsible people that have already completed your plans and are now in maintenance mode.

Note: if you’re not one of those people, it’s okay – that’s why we’re here – to help.

If you have been with us for a while, you know every year on your signing anniversary we send you an email that let’s you know another year has passed and invites you to check your plan to see if you need updates.

A question we get often (which I should just work into the email now that I’m thinking about it), surrounds changes in the details of people and whether or not updates are necessary.

Address changes.

Name changes (usually via marriage).

And changes in the number of children/grandchildren.

Thankfully, none of those changes are going to require an update to your plan.

Addresses serve only as placeholders to identify people – a current address isn’t a requirement to receive an inheritance.

Name changes also don’t require an update. So long as the person keeps a record of the name change (which they will want to do for their own personal reasons) everything will be okay.

And changes in the number of children/grandchildren won’t necessitate the need for an update either, so long as you created your plan with us.

We generally include language that identifies children/grandchildren as a class, so the addition of another one doesn’t affect the plan.

For example, the language might say, “I divide my estate equally amongst my children in equal shares…” If your children increase, that’s already built into the plan.

Now to close the loop on this, the main times you would want to make a change is if you want to change the people you’ve named to respective positions or if you want to change the distribution amounts and/or recipients of things.

That’s it for today. Short and sweet.

Have a great week!

Cheers.

Christopher Small
Founder/CEO
CMS Law Firm LLC

PS – don’t keep this estate planning stuff to yourself – you know it’s important and we LOVE referrals!