Are your financial plans tied to your spouse’s? If you’ve been married a long time, it’s impossible to ignore the possibility that your plans rely on the joint financial strategies or savings you’ve accumulated together. Which makes it that much harder to pivot if you get a divorce in your older years. 

There are unique challenges that could affect your estate plan if you get divorced in your older years. Making a decision about what is most important for you should be the underlying reason why you seek out the support of an experienced family lawyer but you might also need to visit your estate planning lawyer before and after the divorce is finalized. This is because there are many ways that your financial plan can be changed. If you get divorced you will need to update all of your existing estate plan materials. But you’ll also need to conduct a thorough evaluation of your retirement plan.

There is a good chance that any existing retirement plans and estate plans were built on the premise that you would still be with your now former spouse. In those circumstances, it can feel overwhelming to approach the prospect of updating all of your estate plans on your own.

You’ll want to make sure that all of your documents now reflect a new beneficiary including life insurance policies and retirement accounts that you might not have looked at in years. In those circumstances having a lawyer to guide you through the process and help you to avoid unfortunate surprises can be instrumental.

There are so many things to think about in the wake of a divorce and many changes that come in your life, but making sure that your estate plan still aligns with your individual goal should be a top priority.