Estate Planning Lawyers in Cleveland, Ohio

Divorce is a life-altering event that may change your perspective on what you want to do with your wealth at the time of your death. You should review your estate plan prior to and immediately after divorce to ensure that your goals for the transfer of your wealth are realized. You may need an estate plan because you have none, or, if you have one, you will likely need to revise or replace it, as circumstances change with divorce. Call us. We will help.

The restructuring of the family resulting from a divorce necessitates, in almost every case, a change in the designated beneficiary, or beneficiaries, of your estate. If you have not previously had an estate plan, the divorce underscores the importance of ensuring that the assets secured for you in the property division are transferred to whom you desire, and under what circumstances, upon your death. It may also be necessary to create a trust to preserve assets for your children in the event of your death before they are truly “adults,” and to name a third-party trustee to manage the trust, rather than to allow your ex-spouse to be in control of your children’s inheritance. You may also want a new Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA) if your ex-spouse has the authority to make health care decisions for you in your existing HCPOA, or a General durable Power of Attorney to handle financial matters if you are unable to do so, and it may be desirable that a trust be created to secure support obligations.