What to do With Your Estate Plan When You Relocate

When you relocate there are a lot of details to attend to, especially if your new home will be in another state. With so much to do it is easy to forget about your estate plan and how your move may affect it.

If you intend to move to another state, you will want to update your estate plan after your move by contacting a local attorney experienced in estate planning law. Most of your estate planning documents will be valid in another state, but you could still run into some problems.  If you own real estate in both states, when it comes time to probate your estate there will likely be probate proceedings in both states.

Another problem that you may encounter is with your Power of Attorney documents. Your Power of Attorney documents are created under state law, and the laws of your new state may vary from those of the state where the estate plan was created. This could cause some major problems, especially with your Medical Power of Attorney and appointed health care agent. Doctors are often not comfortable with documents that they are unfamiliar with; this is also true for financial institutions.

When moving to a new state, be sure that you update your estate plan as soon as possible. If you don’t feel that you need to review your entire estate plan, you will at least want to visit a local attorney so that you can update your Power of Attorney documents. In addition to attending to your Power of Attorney documents, it may be a good idea to create a trust to administer your estate; this could help avoid messy probate proceedings if you have assets in two different states.