Monthly Archives: August 2026

An Estate Plan can be perfectly signed, neatly stored, and still be wrong for the life you are living now. That is the quiet risk with an outdated plan, the documents may look official, but the people, assets, and assumptions behind them may no longer match reality.

Estate Planning is not something most people want to revisit often, which is understandable. Once the Will, Trust, powers of attorney, and health care documents are signed, it is tempting to put everything away and feel done. The problem is that life keeps moving: families change, assets change, state laws change, and the people you once trusted to serve may no longer be the right people for the job.

Here are ten signs your Estate Plan may be overdue for a review.

1. You Created the Plan Years Ago and Have Not Looked at It Since

Even a well-drafted Estate Plan can become stale. A plan created ten or fifteen years ago may still be legally valid, but that does not mean it still reflects your wishes. The people named in the documents may have aged, moved, died, or become less appropriate for the role. Your assets may also look very different from the assets you owned when the plan was signed.

A good rule of thumb is to review your Estate Plan every few years, and sooner if something significant changes in your life.

2. You Got Married, Divorced, or Remarried

Marriage, divorce, and remarriage can change the entire planning picture. You may need to update who inherits, who serves as Trustee or executor, and who has authority to make financial or health care decisions if you become incapacitated.

This is especially important in blended families. A plan that once worked for a first marriage may not protect a surviving spouse and children from a prior relationship in the way you now intend. Divorce also deserves careful review because updating the Will or Trust may not update every beneficiary designation or account form.

3. You Had Children, Grandchildren, or a Change in Family Responsibilities

New children or grandchildren often change how a plan should be structured. Parents of minor children may need to nominate guardians, name Trustees, and decide how assets should be managed until the children are mature enough to receive them. Grandchildren may also raise new planning questions, especially if gifts are being made directly to them or if a child has special financial, medical, or personal needs.

The same is true if you now support a parent, sibling, adult child, or other family member. If someone depends on you, your Estate Plan should reflect that responsibility.

4. The People You Named No Longer Make Sense

Many Estate Plans fail quietly because the people named in them are no longer the right people. The successor Trustee may be elderly or ill; the executor may have moved across the country; the person named as guardian may no longer be close to the family; the agent under the power of attorney may no longer be someone you trust with financial decisions.

Naming the right people is not a one-time decision, and it should be revisited as relationships, health, distance, and family dynamics change.

5. Your Beneficiary Designations Have Not Been Reviewed

Some of the most important assets may pass outside of your Will or Trust. Life insurance, retirement accounts, payable-on-death accounts, and transfer-on-death accounts generally pass according to beneficiary designations. If those forms are outdated, they may override the plan you carefully put in place.

This is how an ex-spouse, deceased relative, or unintended beneficiary can remain in line to receive an account. Reviewing beneficiary designations is one of the simplest ways to prevent an Estate Plan from being undermined by old paperwork.

6. You Moved to Another State

A move to another state is a good reason to review your Estate Plan. Your documents may still be valid, but each state has its own rules for Wills, Trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives, property rights, and taxes. Financial institutions and medical providers may also be more comfortable with forms that match the law of the state where you now live.

A move does not always mean starting over, but it does mean the plan should be checked.

7. You Bought or Sold Major Assets

A new home, rental property, business interest, investment account, or valuable personal property can affect how your plan should work. Likewise, assets that were sold, retitled, or closed may leave old provisions unnecessary or confusing.

This is especially important if you have a Trust. The Trust only controls assets that are properly titled to it or otherwise coordinated with it. Buying major assets and never updating titles or beneficiary designations can leave the plan incomplete.

8. Your Trust Was Never Fully Funded

A Trust can be carefully drafted and still fail to avoid probate if it was never funded. Funding usually means retitling assets into the Trust or coordinating beneficiary designations, so the assets pass as intended.

This is one of the most common estate planning gaps. Clients may believe they “have a Trust,” but if the home, bank accounts, investment accounts, or other important assets were never transferred to the Trust or properly coordinated, the family may still face delays, costs, and administrative burdens the Trust was intended to avoid.

9. Your Incapacity Documents Are Outdated

Estate Planning is not only about what happens at death. Powers of attorney, health care directives, and HIPAA authorizations may be needed while you are still alive but unable to act.

These documents should be reviewed regularly. If the named agent is no longer available, if your health care wishes have changed, or if financial institutions hesitate to accept an older power of attorney, your family may have to deal with unnecessary obstacles during an emergency.

10. The Plan Has Not Kept Up with You

Your Estate Plan may have made perfect sense when you signed it, but life has a way of moving faster than the paperwork. The people you named may no longer be the best choices, your assets may look different, or your priorities may have changed in ways the old documents do not reflect.

An outdated Estate Plan can create a false sense of security. The documents may be signed and stored away, but the real question is whether they would work if your family needed them now. If any of these red flags sound familiar, reach out to me to make sure your plan still fits your life.

I spend a lot of time reading about “slayer statutes” rather than applying them, which is probably how everyone would prefer it. These statutes exist for the worst cases, the ones in which someone may stand to inherit from a person in whose death that same person may have played a role. Still, every so often, a case brings slayer statutes back into public view and reminds us that backup language in an Estate Plan may matter more than anyone expected. The deaths of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner have produced one of those cases, raising a question that goes beyond the criminal charges: what happens when the person named to inherit is also the person whose right to inherit is being challenged?

According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were fatally stabbed at their Brentwood home on December 14, 2025. They had been married for more than 35 years. Their son, Nick Reiner, allegedly fled the house and was arrested that evening. Two days later, District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced that Nick had been charged with two counts of murder, along with a special circumstance allegation of multiple murders and a special allegation that he personally used a knife. As of this writing, Nick has pleaded not guilty of the charges and is awaiting trial.

An Estate Planning issue in June, when Nick filed a petition in Los Angeles probate court asking for access to money held in a Trust his parents created for him when he was a baby, reportedly worth $1.5 million. He is represented by a public defender and wants to hire a private attorney instead. His civil attorney argues that Nick should be able to use money that lawfully belongs to him to fund his defense. A lawyer for the Trust declined to release the funds, leaving the matter before the probate court.

The timing may be one of the most interesting details. The Trust reportedly provided for Nick to receive half the money at age 30 and the balance at age 35. He turned 32 last September, so the age-30 distribution was apparently due roughly two years before his parents died. According to the petition, that money was never paid out though it doesn’t say why, and the Trust terms have not been made public. If the Trust gave the trustee discretion to hold back the age 30 distribution, the Trustee may have been doing exactly what Rob and Michele designed the Trust to do. It also raises a harder question than the headlines suggest: whether an interest that may have vested before death should be treated the same as property passing because of death.

California, like most other states, has statutes designed to prevent a killer from profiting from a death. California’s statute prevents a person who feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent from receiving property under a Will, receiving an interest under a Trust, taking property by intestacy, or claiming certain community property rights. The California statute can also bar that person from serving as executor, trustee, guardian, conservator, or custodian, severing joint tenancy interests, and reaching beneficiary designations on assets such as life insurance. The mechanism the statute uses is to treat the killer as though he or she died first, and the rest of the plan proceeds from there.

Even with that statute in place, the administration does not necessarily become simple. A final judgment of conviction settles the question conclusively, but absent a conviction, the probate court may decide the matter using the civil standard, a preponderance of the evidence, rather than the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt. That leaves the Trustee in a difficult position. Pay to the alleged slayer, and the Trustee may have funded someone a court later determines is disqualified. Refuse, and the Trustee may be withholding from a beneficiary who has not been convicted of anything. If the Trust is silent about what to do while that question is open, the Trustee may have little choice but to ask the court for direction.

The Reiner case will continue to play out in public, but the Estate Planning lesson is already familiar to anyone who drafts these documents: the first person named may not always be the person who ultimately can receive the distribution or serve as a fiduciary. Fortunately, most clients will never encounter a slayer statute, but they may encounter the ordinary version of the same problem. A beneficiary dies before the client. A sibling named as Trustee is no longer able to manage the role. An ex-spouse remains on a retirement account beneficiary form because the Trust was updated after the divorce, but the 401(k) was not.

That is why successor fiduciaries, contingent beneficiaries, and clear “treated as predeceased” provisions matter. Clients tend to focus on the first name listed because that name reflects the plan as they picture it today. The backup provisions rarely get the same attention, but they may often determine whether the plan can still work when life does not unfold as expected.

The loss at the center of this story should not be overlooked: Nick Reiner’s siblings have lost both parents and may now spend years in court with their brother. Hopefully, Rob and Michele Reiner’s Estate Plan named the successors and contingent beneficiaries that a situation like this demands. A comprehensive Estate Plan should do more than express the client’s first choice. It should also give the family a path forward when that first choice cannot inherit, cannot serve, or becomes the source of the dispute.