November 18, 2022
What Needs To Be Done With A Trust After Divorce?
In this episode of Berry’s Bites, Chris Berry answers the question: If a married couple has a Joint Trust, then gets divorced, what needs to be done with the Trust?
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Episode Transcript:
The married couple has a joint trust and then gets divorced. What needs to be done with the trust?
The first thing typically, with the divorce decree that’s going to revoke the old estate plan typically what’s going to happen as you go through that divorce proceeding especially if it’s a joint trust they’re going to say you know what we’re tossing this aside and then the assets will be separated.
Let’s say we have husband and wife and now the husband has these assets wife has these assets and through the divorce, they just ensure that there are no joint assets moving forward maybe one spouse gets the house one spouse gets more money whatever it may be now what should happen so first is the old stuff will be revoked second each spouse now needs to do their own estate plan which I’ll tell you when I see clients go through a divorce the last thing they want to do is that spend any more time with a lawyer but it is super important to update the estate plan make sure all the beneficiary designations were in fact changed.
Because sometimes we see that as they go through the divorce proceedings like not all the assets get changed correctly and again like you don’t want your ex listed as a beneficiary of your accounts you don’t want your ex listed as a financial or medical power of attorney you don’t want your acts listed as a beneficiary now typically through the divorce degree they’ll kind of revoke that but still you don’t want those documents hanging out there so I know it’s tough because if you went through this divorce you’re probably a little gun-shy of working with attorneys but really the next step should be updating that estate plan and getting your own estate plan.