Do I Need to Change My Will After a Divorce?

Updating Your Estate Plan After Divorce

The good news is that once your divorce is final, any bequests to your ex-spouse, or appointments in your will, will be automatically revoked by Massachusetts law. So if your primary concern is to not leave important roles or assets to your ex-spouse, you can breathe a sigh of relief.

The bad news is that the entire structure of your prior estate plan most likely needs to be revisited. This includes guardianship of you have minor children, substitute appointments for personal representative, health care proxy, and power of attorney, and possibly rethinking of whether your estate plan adequately protects you from estate tax liability.

You also should know that while your divorce is pending, whatever you have in your estate plan, including your soon to be ex-spouse, will be honored by the courts. If you are in the middle of a divorce process, you may want to make some changes in the interim, in case something happens before your divorce is final.

Learn more here about how divorce changes your estate plan.