The biggest mistake you can possibly make when it comes to your Estate Plan is simply not making the time to do it. Unfortunately, it’s something too many of us put off. But failing to prioritize your plan, or not ensuring it’s complete, ultimately means you’re risking the financial future of your estate, your legacy, and most importantly, your loved ones.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but if possible, it’s a good idea to have a conversation with your friends and family. Setting expectations now, where there is an opportunity for discussion, if needed, could lessen the likelihood that there is any contention or disagreement after your passing. If this isn’t an option, there’s language you can write into parts of your Estate Plan that specify anyone who contests anything could be written out.

You should always have more than one beneficiary designated for any of your assets. In the event that a beneficiary passes away before you do, you’ll want to have what’s known as a contingent beneficiary. This is who would be next in line to your estate or any given asset. Ideally, you should have more than one contingent beneficiary listed.

Naming a Power of Attorney (either medical or financial) and/or a Healthcare Proxy is important, as these are the people who would step in to make decisions should you become incapacitated. Note that in most cases, these roles dissolve upon your passing.

Your loved ones will be grieving after you pass away, but planning in advance what you’d like to have happen (in terms of your funeral or burial arrangements) can be a blessing for those you leave behind. Another important component to this is making sure your wishes for end-of-life care are known (i.e. hospice, assisted living, etc.).

The idea of digital estate planning is relatively new, but it makes sense, given the technological world we live in. Be sure to include a Digital Estate Plan that lays out how you’d like all your digital assets to be handled after you pass away. This could be anything from social media accounts, to online banking, to email accounts, and more.

Particularly if you have a large estate, but even if you don’t have incredible wealth, you can still allocate some of your assets to benefit a charity that’s important to you.

While your directions may be well-intentioned, there are cases where how you word things could come back to haunt your children or heirs. If your children are very young, you may want to include directions for how their guardian should spend assets, either to take care of them, or to benefit them in other ways. 

Other missteps could include assuming your children will want something, when in fact they may not. For example, you might intend on passing down a vacation home that’s been in your family for generations, with the stipulation that it could only be sold if every child is married with their own vacation home. But what happens if one of the children doesn’t want to get married? Or doesn’t want to be a homeowner? In these cases, substantial legal fees and devaluation of an asset could affect the overall size of your estate as heirs go through the courts to gain allowances.

We normally advise you to be as specific as possible when writing your Estate Plan. However, there is one caveat to that. You may own assets at one point in life that you might not necessarily have in the future. Are you putting stocks in your plan? Real estate? Season tickets to your favorite sports team? Are these all things you’re guaranteed to have decades from now?

A Trust is an excellent component to have in virtually any Estate Plan, but it could all be for naught if you don’t properly fund it. Creating a Trust is only half the battle––it’s useless until it’s actually funded.

Estate tax liability can put a huge dent in what you plan on leaving your beneficiaries. In addition to your estate owing taxes before beneficiaries are paid out, you also want to think about how your gifts will impact individual heirs, too.

Having the best Estate Plan in the world won’t accomplish anything if your heirs can’t find it. Think twice before putting your plan into a safety deposit box, as it can become complicated when your loved ones try to gain access after you pass away. But you do want to keep all of your estate planning documents together and in a safe place.

Unfortunately, estate planning is not a set-it-and-forget it deal. You need to keep it current, and make sure it reflects all of your life changes as they come. As we mentioned earlier, any major life event could be cause for an update, this could include a marriage, divorce, birth of a child, or death of a family member or beneficiary.