How Often Should You Review
Update Your Estate Plan?
Richard Keyt (Rick, the father at 480-664-7478) and his son, former CPA Richard C. Keyt (Ricky at 480-664-7472), are Arizona estate planning attorneys with 294 5-star Google reviews and 407 5-star Google, Facebook & Birdeye reviews. They want to prepare a custom estate plan for Arizona residents that protects their most valuable assets – their loved ones. Call, email, or book a free office, phone or Zoom video meeting.
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How Often Should You Review and Update Your Estate Plan?
Creating an estate plan is one of the most important things you will ever do for the people you love. But signing your documents and putting them in a drawer is not the finish line — it is just the beginning. An estate plan that reflected your life perfectly ten years ago may be badly outdated today. The good news is that reviewing your plan is usually quick and painless. The bad news is that most people never do it.
In this article I explain how often you should review your estate plan and — just as importantly — the specific life events and legal changes that require you to update your documents right away.
The Basic Rule: Review Every Three to Five Years
Even if nothing dramatic has happened in your life, you should review your estate plan at least every three to five years. Why? Because your circumstances change gradually over time even when there is no single defining event. The people you named as trustees, executors, agents, and guardians may have moved away, become ill, or had a falling out with you. The assets in your estate may have grown substantially or shifted in character. Tax laws change. Arizona estate planning law evolves. A routine periodic review catches these slow-drift problems before they become crises.
Think of your estate plan review the same way you think about a physical with your doctor. You go even when you feel fine, because some problems are silent until they are serious. The same is true for your estate plan.
Life Events That Require an Immediate Estate Plan Review
Certain life events should trigger an immediate review — not a “I'll get to it eventually” review, but a call to your estate planning attorney within the next few weeks. Here are the most important ones:
1. You Get Married
Marriage changes everything. If you had an estate plan before the marriage, it was designed for a different life. You will almost certainly want your new spouse named as the primary beneficiary of your revocable living trust, as your successor trustee, and as your agent under your financial and healthcare powers of attorney. You will also need to update the beneficiary designations on your life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, bank accounts, and other accounts that pass by beneficiary designation rather than through your trust.
Do not assume that getting married automatically fixes your estate plan. It does not. Your prior estate planning documents remain in effect until you change them.
2. You Get Divorced
Divorce is equally urgent. Arizona law does automatically revoke certain provisions benefiting a former spouse after a divorce decree is entered, but the law does not automatically rewrite your entire plan. Your ex-spouse may still be named in places that Arizona law does not reach — including as a beneficiary of your retirement accounts and life insurance, which pass outside of probate and outside of your will. You need to:
- Amend or restate your revocable living trust to remove your former spouse
- Update your will, powers of attorney, and healthcare directive
- Change the beneficiary designations on every account and policy individually
- Remove your ex as a trustee, successor trustee, or executor
- Consider whether to create a new plan from scratch if the prior plan was heavily built around the marriage
Failing to update your estate plan after divorce has caused some of the most heartbreaking outcomes I have seen in my 40+ years of Arizona law practice — estates left unintentionally to ex-spouses, children cut out, and families torn apart by litigation that could have been avoided with a phone call.
3. A Child Is Born or Adopted
The birth or adoption of a child is a joyful event and a critical estate planning trigger. You need to:
- Add the new child as a beneficiary in your trust
- Nominate a guardian for the child in your will — this is the only place where Arizona law allows you to nominate who will raise your minor children if both parents are gone
- Decide at what age and under what conditions the child will receive their inheritance outright
- Consider establishing a Beneficiary-Controlled Asset Protected Trust (BCAPT) so your child's inheritance is shielded from future creditors, divorce, and lawsuits
If you have minor children and no estate plan, or an estate plan that predates a child's birth, please call us. The stakes are too high to wait.
4. A Child Becomes an Adult
When a child turns 18 in Arizona, they are legally an adult — which means you no longer have automatic authority to make healthcare or financial decisions for them. This surprises many parents. Your 18-year-old college student needs their own durable financial power of attorney and healthcare power of attorney naming you as agent so that you can act on their behalf in an emergency. In addition, when your children become adults, you may want to update your trust to reflect the ages and conditions under which they will receive their inheritance.
5. A Beneficiary or Key Person in Your Plan Dies
If a named beneficiary, successor trustee, executor, or agent under a power of attorney passes away, your plan may have gaps or unintended results. Review your documents to designate a replacement and confirm the plan still works as intended.
6. Your Financial Situation Changes Significantly
A major increase or decrease in wealth should prompt a review. If you receive a substantial inheritance, sell a business, or acquire significant real estate, you need to make sure those new assets are properly titled in your trust and that your plan still reflects your wishes. Conversely, if your financial situation has changed dramatically, sub-trusts and other provisions in your plan may no longer be appropriate.
7. You Acquire New Real Estate
Every piece of real property you own needs to be transferred into your revocable living trust by deed — or it will almost certainly go through Arizona probate when you die. Many people create a trust, fund it at the time of signing, and then purchase additional property years later without transferring it. That new property is not in the trust. It will go through probate. Review your plan and deed all real property into your trust.
8. You Move to Another State
Estate planning documents that were valid and properly executed in one state are generally recognized in Arizona, and Arizona documents are generally recognized in other states — but “generally” is not “always.” More importantly, the law of your new state may affect how your assets are distributed, how your powers of attorney work, and what formalities are required for your healthcare directive. If you move from Arizona to another state, or to Arizona from another state, have a local estate planning attorney review your documents.
9. Your Choice of Trustee, Executor, or Agent Changes
The people you named when you first created your plan may no longer be the right choices. Perhaps your named successor trustee has moved far away, developed health problems, or had a significant change in their relationship with you. Perhaps you named a sibling as your healthcare agent but you are now estranged. The humans in your estate plan matter as much as the legal language. Review your designations periodically and update them when the right person changes.
10. A Significant Change in Tax Law
The federal estate tax exemption has changed dramatically over the years and will likely change again. As of 2025, the federal estate tax exemption is over $13 million per person. When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions sunset (currently scheduled for the end of 2025 unless Congress acts), the exemption could drop significantly. If you have a taxable estate or an older plan built around tax-minimization strategies that are no longer relevant, a review with your attorney is warranted.
The Critical Importance of Funding Your Trust
Every estate plan review should also include a review of your trust funding. I want to be direct about this because it is the most common and most costly mistake I see:
An unfunded revocable living trust does not avoid probate. Period.
If you have a revocable living trust but your home is titled in your own name, your brokerage accounts do not name the trust as a beneficiary, and your bank accounts pass to your heirs by the bank's default rules — your estate will go through Arizona probate court just as if you had a will only. The trust is irrelevant for assets that are not in it.
Proper trust funding means:
- Transferring title to real property into the trust by deed (recorded with the county)
- Retitling bank and brokerage accounts in the name of the trust
- Naming the trust as beneficiary (or successor beneficiary) of life insurance and retirement accounts as appropriate
- Transferring ownership of business interests into the trust
- Transferring personal property of significant value
Every time you review your estate plan, walk through your assets and confirm that each one is properly connected to your trust.
What to Look for in a Periodic Estate Plan Review
When you sit down to review your estate plan — whether on a scheduled basis or because a life event has occurred — here is a practical checklist of what to examine:
- Beneficiaries: Are all named beneficiaries still living? Are they still the right people to receive your estate?
- Successor trustees and executors: Is your named successor trustee still willing and able to serve? Do you have a backup?
- Powers of attorney: Are your financial and healthcare agents still the right people? Are the documents still current and acceptable to institutions?
- Guardian nominations: If you have minor children, is your nominated guardian still the right choice?
- Trust funding: Are all of your significant assets titled in your trust or connected to it by beneficiary designation?
- Distribution provisions: Do the ages, conditions, and percentages for distribution in your trust still reflect your wishes?
- New assets: Have you acquired real estate, business interests, or other significant property since your last review?
- Beneficiary designations: Do the beneficiary designations on your IRA, 401(k), life insurance, and similar accounts still match your plan?
- Digital assets: Do you have provisions for your digital assets, including cryptocurrency, online accounts, and digital files?
- Business interests: If you own an LLC or other business, is ownership of that interest properly addressed in your estate plan?
Do Not Let Perfect Be the Enemy of Good
One reason people put off estate plan reviews is that they know updates are needed but feel overwhelmed. My advice: do not wait until you can address every issue perfectly. Even a partial update — updating a single beneficiary designation today, or calling an attorney to start the amendment process — is better than leaving an outdated plan in place indefinitely.
An outdated estate plan is not a safety net. In many cases it is a source of unintended results, family conflict, and unnecessary expense for the people you love most.
Ready to Review or Update Your Arizona Estate Plan?
If you have not reviewed your estate plan in three or more years — or if any of the life events described above apply to you — I encourage you to schedule a consultation with me and my son and law partner Ricky Keyt, who was a CPA before going to law school. Together we can review your existing documents, identify gaps and outdated provisions, and recommend the most cost-effective path to updating your plan.
We have helped more than 1,000 Arizona families create and maintain estate plans that actually protect their loved ones. We would be honored to help yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I review my estate plan?
You should review your estate plan at least every three to five years even if nothing significant has changed in your life. In addition, any major life event — such as marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, the death of a beneficiary or trustee, a significant change in assets, or a move to another state — should trigger an immediate review.
Does getting married require me to update my estate plan?
Yes. Marriage is one of the most important triggers for updating your estate plan. You will almost certainly want your new spouse named as a primary beneficiary on your trust, will, and beneficiary designations, and as your successor trustee, executor, and agent under your powers of attorney. Failing to update your plan after marriage can create serious unintended consequences.
What happens to my estate plan after a divorce?
Arizona law automatically revokes certain provisions in favor of a former spouse after a divorce, but the law does not automatically fix everything. You should update your revocable living trust, will, powers of attorney, healthcare directive, and all beneficiary designations immediately after a divorce is final to make sure your ex-spouse is completely removed from your estate plan.
Do I need to update my estate plan when a child is born?
Yes. When a child is born or adopted, you should update your estate plan to add that child as a beneficiary of your trust, nominate a guardian for the child in your will, and consider whether you want to create a protected sub-trust to hold the child's inheritance.
Should I update my estate plan if I move to another state?
Yes. Estate planning laws vary significantly from state to state. If you move to a new state, you should have an estate planning attorney in that state review your documents to confirm they comply with local law and still accomplish your goals. Powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and wills are especially state-specific.
What is the risk of not funding my revocable living trust?
An unfunded revocable living trust is nearly useless. If you do not transfer ownership of your assets into the trust — or name the trust as the beneficiary of accounts and policies — those assets will likely have to go through Arizona probate court before they can be distributed to your loved ones. Creating a trust is only the first step; funding it is equally essential.
About the Authors
Richard Keyt (Rick) is an Arizona estate planning and LLC attorney at KEYTLaw, LLC in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has practiced Arizona law since 1979 and has completed more than 1,000 Arizona estate plans. His son and law partner, Richard C. Keyt (Ricky), is an attorney and a former CPA. Together they serve clients throughout Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, Glendale, Peoria, Surprise, Chandler, and Queen Creek. See their website at https://www.keytlaw.com and the fee and the 36 documents & services in their estate plan.Disclaimer: We are Arizona attorneys, but not your attorney. This information is for educational purposes only and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Arizona laws are unique; always consult a local professional regarding your specific situation.
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Call or email Richard Keyt, the father
Direct phone: 480-664-7478
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Call or email Richard C. Keyt, the son
Direct phone: 480-664-7472
Email: [email protected]