When Should You Update Your Estate Plan?

An estate plan reflects the law and the life you had on the day you signed it. Both change. Documents drafted a decade ago frequently name people who have moved on, divide assets that no longer exist, and rely on statutes that have since been rewritten. Reviewing them is far less work than fixing the consequences.

The Baseline Review Schedule

Every three to five years is the usual answer for a plan that is working, with a faster cycle for anyone whose assets or family situation is in motion.

A review is not the same as a rewrite. Most reviews confirm the documents still do what you intended and end there. The value is in catching the ones that do not.

Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage

Marriage changes your documents and your obligations at once. A spouse acquires statutory rights that a will cannot simply override. Under D.C. Code § 19-113, a surviving spouse or domestic partner may renounce the will within six months after it is admitted to probate and take their legal share instead, capped at one half of the net estate devised. Planning around that is easier before it becomes an issue.

Divorce demands a full pass through every document, not just the will. Do not assume a decree rewrote them for you. Revocation of a will is also formal: D.C. Code § 18-109 permits it only through a later will, codicil, or writing executed with the same formalities, or by burning, tearing, cancelling, or obliterating the document with intent. Crossing out a name and initialing the margin accomplishes nothing.

Remarriage with children from a prior relationship is the situation most likely to require restructuring rather than amendment, as covered under blended family planning.

Births, Deaths, and Changing Relationships

A new child or grandchild raises questions about guardianship nominations and whether distributions should be made per stirpes so that later descendants are included automatically.

The death or incapacity of anyone named in your documents is an immediate trigger. That includes a personal representative, trustee, guardian, agent under a power of attorney, healthcare agent, and any beneficiary. Plans commonly name a single person for several roles, so one death can leave multiple gaps.

Relationships change without anyone dying. A child develops a disability and needs special needs planning. A trustee becomes estranged. A person named at forty is not the right choice at seventy.

Moving To or From the District

Relocation affects more than an address. Execution requirements, spousal rights, intestacy rules, and estate tax thresholds vary considerably, and the differences around the District are stark. Maryland imposes both an estate tax and an inheritance tax, Virginia imposes neither, and the District imposes an estate tax at a threshold far below the federal one.

Moving across a national border changes far more. Citizenship, residency, and domicile each carry consequences, and documents that work in one country may be unrecognized in another. Estate planning for expatriates and international estate planning address what needs to be redone rather than translated.

Changes in What You Own

Buying or selling real property, starting or selling a business, receiving an inheritance, and significant appreciation all warrant a look. Growth alone can push an estate past the District exclusion, which the Office of Tax and Revenue set at $4,988,400 for 2026 deaths. Because that exclusion is not portable between spouses, a couple whose net worth has grown into this range often needs structural changes rather than tweaks, as explained under estate taxes.

New assets also need to be funded into an existing trust. A trust controls only what was actually retitled into it, and property bought after the trust was signed is a common gap.

Recent District and Federal Law Changes

The past few years produced several changes that make older documents worth checking.

The District adopted the Uniform Power of Attorney Act of 2022, under which a power of attorney is now durable unless it expressly provides that it terminates on incapacity. The Uniform Electronic Wills Amendment Act of 2022 recognized electronically executed wills. The small estate threshold rose from $40,000 to $80,000 under D.C. Code § 20-351, effective in 2025.

On the federal side, the basic exclusion amount reached $15,000,000 for 2026 deaths, and the reduction that had been scheduled for the start of 2026 did not occur. Plans built around that expected reduction may now be doing work nobody needs.

Documents People Forget to Update

Three items sit outside the will and get skipped.

Beneficiary designations override your will, and a former spouse left on a retirement account will receive the money. Pull current statements rather than relying on memory.

Powers of attorney and healthcare directives name people, and those choices go stale. District healthcare proxies carry specific execution requirements under D.C. Code § 21-2205, including two adult witnesses with restrictions on who may serve.

Transfer on death deeds cannot be undone informally. Under D.C. Code § 19-604.11, revocation requires a recorded instrument acknowledged after the deed being revoked and recorded before death. Revocation by act is not permitted.

What Updating Actually Involves

Small changes to a will are handled by codicil, though a restated will is often cleaner than a document with amendments attached. Revocable trusts are amended or restated. Beneficiary forms are refiled with the institution. Deeds are re-recorded.

Bring a current asset list, current beneficiary designations, and a note on who you would name today for each role. Most reviews take one meeting.

A Washington DC estate planning attorney can tell you quickly whether your documents still work or need rebuilding. Contact our office to schedule a consultation.

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