Going through a divorce in New Jersey should encourage you to rethink your finances. The estate and assets you own will take on a different form after your divorce. If you don’t readjust your estate, then there might be penalties for your inaction later on. Keep in mind that the estate plan you had prior to a divorce accounted for your spouse. At the end of your divorce, you’ll no longer have a spouse to account for. This is why it’s imperative to update your estate.
Living and testamentary wills
Wills are legal documents, but they can be contested. After a divorce, the assets listed in your will might no longer be yours to claim. Clearly, you can’t give directives regarding assets that you don’t own. However, your will won’t rewrite itself as a result of your divorce. Start by first accounting for the new estate you incurred. You still have the right to create a will, but you need to adjust for the things you lost in or gained from a divorce.
Revocable and irrevocable trusts
Trusts are financial instruments that give estate owners tremendous security against fraudsters, taxes and creditors. In a trust, a trustee is in charge of your assets and will be the mediator between the trust and its beneficiary. The beneficiary of a trust is the one who will inherit its contents. If that was your spouse, you might want to reconsider this. Equally, the money you held in a trust might be withdrawn in order to provide funding for any divorce settlements.
Divorce in New Jersey
Being diligent about the state of your financial portfolio is necessary during a divorce. The life you shared with your spouse will no longer stand as it did. The only way to excel afterward is to update your estate.