Have you already done your estate plan? Do you or your parents spend their winters in warmer states?

The older your original estate plan is the greater the risk for errors or issues. Numerous items of your own personal situation may have changed, the people around you may have also changed, more importantly, the laws and regulations which defined your plan could have also changed.

Some of the questions you should ask yourself during your estate planning review include:

• Who is appointed as your power of attorney? If you have property in multiple states, do you have a power of attorney appointed in that state and according to that states laws? Is the person appointed still significant in your important and are they reliable enough to maintain your best interests?
• Who did you name as beneficiaries of your trust? Are there any new beneficiaries you want to name? The ones you did name are they still around? Is there any one you want to exclude?
• Who have you appointed as trustee of your estate? Who did you appoint as the successor of your estate? If you appointed a corporation or an attorney, are they still doing business, do you still meet their required guidelines for appointment?
• Have you checked your life insurance policy to insure that your trust is properly named? Often times making changes to your life insurance policy is simply forgotten.
• Are there any new assets that have not been properly placed into the trust? The key takeaway is you always need to reevaluate every portion of the trust which names a person and consider making changes based on where things are now.