If you have been divorced or widowed and have now found a new love with whom you want to share the rest of your life, you deserve to feel elated and positive about your future. However, the promise of a happy family and home life should not prevent you from tending to some very important business. When embarking on a second or subsequent marriage, your estate plan deserves to undergo a review and potential revision.
As pointed out by CNBC, it is logical for a person to want to ensure their spouse is sufficiently cared for after they die. They also want to leave something for their children. When their children are not the children of their spouse, however, things can get very complicated very quickly. For this reason, a basic will may not be a sufficient means of addressing a blended family’s estate planning needs.
There are many types of trusts available, some of which are geared toward leaving assets for multiple parties such as a surviving spouse and adult children or grandchildren. The use of such a trust avoids a situation where all assets flow to a surviving spouse and never end up making it to the children either because the spouse used up all assets during their life or because that person actively chose not to pass them on to the former spouse’s children.
If you would like to learn more about how you and your new partner may best address your desire to care for each other while also providing a legacy for your children and grandchildren, please feel free to visit the blended family’s wills and trusts page of our Virginia estate planning website.
