A comprehensive estate plan provides benefits for any family, providing certainty about the financial future of their loved ones. After a second marriage, it is important to review certain aspects of your estate plan and reconsider how to protect the inheritance of your children and any other loved ones you wish to protect. An estate planning attorney in Kansas City, KS, can help you determine your goals and how to enforce those goals through estate planning documents.
What Is the Importance of Estate Planning After Remarriage?
Estate planning for any family ensures that your assets go to benefit the individuals and entities you want them to benefit following your death. This is especially important for blended families when one or both ex-spouses have remarried.
The simplest form of an estate plan is a last will and testament, which lists the distribution of the estate. Without a will, an estate is distributed based on the state’s intestate inheritance laws. If you die intestate while in a second marriage, your children from your prior marriage may end up with no assets from your estate, and your ex-spouse will also not receive anything.
Families following a second marriage can get very complex, and intestate law may not effectively support your loved ones as you want them to be supported. An estate plan allows you to state which of your family members you want to inherit, including the children of your current marriage, your prior marriage, your step-children, your ex-spouse, and your spouse.
Even if the state’s inheritance law reflects your wishes, there is no guarantee that those laws will remain the same for your entire life.
Things to Consider About Your Estate Plan After Remarriage
An estate plan simply allows you control over what happens to your estate, and that means you can reflect the unique needs of your family. Each family unit is unique, and different people will want to support different family members differently. You can do this in an estate plan.
It can often be beneficial to talk through these decisions and goals with your family to better benefit everyone and ensure open communication about finances. This also helps family members remain on the same page. When you create or update your estate plan after a second marriage, you may want to consider some of the following:
- Which assets you want to benefit the children you already have.
- Which assets you want to leave to your step-children.
- Whether you and your spouse want to have children together and which assets you want them to inherit.
- What you want your spouse to inherit.
- What you want your ex-spouse to inherit, or if you wish to disinherit an ex-spouse.
- The financial needs of all the family members you want to benefit from your estate.
- How to protect any children who are not yet adults, and how to protect their inheritance.
- The assets that you and your current spouse wish to have as separate or marital assets.
- How you can address different financial or personal expectations of you, your spouse, and your children.
- How to address debts both spouses bring to the marriage.
- Coordination with any current estate plans that exist.
- Whether you and your spouse want to create a joint estate plan.
- How your family can benefit from more in-depth estate planning.
- Whether you and your spouse want to create a marital agreement to manage assets during your lifetime.
The answers to these considerations can vary significantly from family to family. What is important is to begin this conversation about estate and finances and determine what your and your spouse’s goals are for your individual and shared estates. Planning ahead can ensure you both know the other’s wishes for your children’s inheritance rights and give you both peace of mind about the management of your estate and the family’s financial stability.
FAQs
Q: What Is Proper Estate Planning for a Second Marriage?
A: The proper estate planning for a second marriage will depend on your unique familial structure and your wishes for your estate. Including one or more trusts in your estate plan is typically beneficial, especially if you have a blended family after a second marriage.
This enables you to distribute your estate as you wish to your ex-spouse, spouse, and children from both marriages. Trusts, unlike wills, can avoid probate after death and can also hold assets until minor children are of age.
Q: What Is a Second Wife Entitled To?
A: A second wife is entitled to certain assets under intestate law if their spouse dies without a will. If a spouse dies intestate in Kansas, with no surviving children or other descendants, then a surviving spouse will inherit the entire estate, regardless of whether that spouse is the individual’s first or second spouse.
A second wife is also entitled to a portion of marital assets in a divorce, just like either spouse in any divorce. In Kansas, this is an equitable portion of marital assets, not necessarily equal.
Q: How Do I Protect My Child’s Inheritance in a Second Marriage?
A: In order to protect your child’s inheritance in a second marriage, you want to create or alter your estate plan following your second marriage. Through documents like a will or a trust, you can state what assets you would like your child to inherit. You can amend this inheritance in whatever way you would like if you choose to have children in your second marriage and wish for all of your children to have an inheritance.
Q: How Do I Protect Myself Financially in a Second Marriage?
A: Protecting your assets and finances in a second marriage requires careful planning and open discussion with your spouse. Estate planning and marital agreements are the primary two methods of protecting yourself financially in a second marriage.
Marital agreements can be made prior to marriage or during a marriage, and they can outline the rights each spouse has for specific separate and marital property. Marital agreements also determine rights to property if the couple separates.
Estate planning can determine the distribution of assets after death and determine which individuals in your family get which assets in your estate.
Protecting Your Financial Future With Enforceable Estate Planning
Creating an estate plan is only beneficial if it will be enforced by the court after your death. With an estate planning attorney, you can craft or alter an estate plan and be confident that it is legally enforceable and upholds your intentions properly. Contact Stange Law Firm today.
