Estate Plan Reviews & Updates in Georgia

When to review your estate plan

We recommend reviewing your estate plan every three to five years, and whenever a major life event occurs. Marriage, divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, the death of a family member, a move to a new state, a significant change in your assets, or the sale of a business — all of these are signals that your plan needs a second look.

Even if nothing has changed in your life, the law may have. Tax laws, probate rules, and trust laws evolve, and a plan that was perfect a decade ago may no longer take advantage of current protections or may no longer work as intended. A periodic review catches these issues while you can still fix them.

What we look for in a review

A plan review is thorough. We check whether your documents are still legally valid under current Georgia law, whether your beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance are coordinated with your plan, and whether your trust is properly funded. We review your guardian nominations, your powers of attorney, and your advance directive to make sure the people named are still the right choices.

We also look at what's changed in your family. Have your children grown and started families of their own? Has your financial situation changed? Are there new assets, new concerns, or new people you want to include? A review is a conversation about your life today, not just a check of your paperwork.

Common problems we find

In reviewing plans created elsewhere, we often find the same issues: trusts that were never funded, beneficiary designations that contradict the plan, guardian nominations that were never updated, and powers of attorney that are too old for banks to accept. We also find plans that were fine when written but no longer fit — a plan for a young family that now has adult children, or a plan that doesn't account for a new business or property.

We also see families relying on payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts as their whole plan. Those designations can be useful tools, but they aren't a plan on their own: they don't protect minor children, they can work against the rest of your plan, and they don't help if you become incapacitated. And many plans say nothing about digital assets — online banking, social media, cloud photos and cryptocurrency — which can leave your family locked out.

Finding these issues now, while you can fix them, is far better than your family discovering them when it's too late. A review gives you the chance to course-correct on your terms, calmly and clearly, rather than leaving your family to sort out a plan that no longer works.

Updating your plan

If your review reveals changes are needed, we make them straightforward. Some updates are simple — a new beneficiary, a new guardian, an updated power of attorney. Others are more substantial — funding a trust, restructuring for a blended family, or adding inheritance protection. Whatever's needed, we explain it clearly and make the changes without starting from scratch.

And once your plan is current, we help you keep it that way. We can set a reminder to review again, and we're here whenever life changes. A plan that grows with you is a plan that works when your family needs it.

What a review costs

We offer an initial review as part of a free consultation, so there's no cost to find out whether your plan still works. If updates are needed, you'll know the cost before we begin — no surprises, no hourly billing. Many updates are simpler and more affordable than families expect, and catching a problem now is always less expensive than fixing it in probate.

If you have documents from another attorney, bring them. We review plans created anywhere, and we'll give you an honest assessment of whether they still fit your family — with no pressure to act on anything we recommend.

Keep reading

• Revocable Living Trusts
• Powers of Attorney & Advance Directives
• Blended Family Estate Planning
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