Estate Planning During a Divorce
In January, Larry King passed away while in the middle of a divorce and left his heirs with contradicting documents that have resulted in an expensive and protracted fight in probate court. According to People magazine, although the majority of King’s assets are funded into a Trust that his estranged wife, Shawn King, is purportedly the Trustee of, there are some assets that are outside of the Trust that will need to be probated. The assets that are titled in the name of the Trust will be distributed privately to the beneficiaries listed in the document without public scrutiny.
A recent Will executed by King after he separated from his wife was lodged with the court by Larry King, Jr., who is not Shawn King’s child. The holographic (handwritten) Will splits his estate evenly amongst his five children. According to Daily Mail, King’s estate that will be subject to probate is around $2 million. Shawn King is contesting the holographic Will, arguing that when Larry executed the document, he did not have capacity due to medical issues and that a 2015 Will naming her as the Executor should control. A Probate hearing is set for May where the court will hear Mrs. King’s objections.
Planning your estate as a married couple can be tricky. There are several decisions to be made that both you and your spouse need to agree on in order to complete your plan. But what happens when you need an estate plan, and you are in the middle of a divorce? Well, the answer is the quintessential attorney response: “it depends.”
If you already have estate planning documents in place, a provision in the documents usually talks about what will happen to your plan during and after a divorce. Most documents with these types of provisions will treat your spouse as if they have predeceased you and your share of the assets will pass according to backup provisions in your plan.
If you have no plan at all, wait until the divorce is finalized in order to execute estate planning documents. The reason being is that the movement of assets during the period of a divorce proceeding strongly discouraged by family law attorneys. An experienced family law attorney should be consulted if you are in a divorce proceeding, to properly advise what can and cannot be done with your assets during divorce.
Once your divorce is finalized, you should contact an experienced estate planning attorney in order to create new estate planning documents that reflect your wishes, post-divorce. Updating your life insurance and retirement plan beneficiaries after divorce is also essential, depending on the terms of your divorce settlement.
One thing is for sure, your first call when getting a divorce should be to an experienced family law attorney and your second call should be to Tresp Law, APC in order to get you the estate planning documents that you need.