DO YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR ESTATE PLAN IF YOU MOVE OUT OF STATE?

A common question from clients that move away from Missouri is do they need to change their estate planning that I completed for them.

The answer is probably.  Here’s why:

Each state has different laws with respect to estate taxes, trusts and many have adopted different statutes with respect to probate and inheritance generally.

Here’s an example:

I used to practice law in New Jersey, which had, at least at that time, a statute that required some beneficiaries from wills and trusts, usually farther than an immediate family member like a cousin or an uncle, to pay inheritance tax on anything received from a relative’s estate.

Attorneys draft estate plans to take to the most advantage out of weakly drafted statutes or to utilize breaks in the law.  And so we drafted wills and trusts in New Jersey that not only had provisions for that very specific inheritance law but took advantage of it where possible.

Different laws among states is not the only reason why you should amend or change your estate plan if you move away from Missouri.

Another issue is the perception by some that out of state documents are a problem.  Banks are a really good example of what I would call a “skittish acceptor” of legal documents.  Having dealt with banks (and faced repeated non-issues made into issues by them) as a probate lawyer St Peters, I can tell you that there is the way things are and the way banks what things to be.

One of the biggest problems with banks is that they no longer train their employees well enough.  As a result, any legal documents are often met with an immediate call to the “legal department”, which is almost always in another state and, as a rule, routinely denies the validity of a document.  This is often just because the bank employee couldn’t properly explain the issue to the legal department and since the default answer at legal is “no”, you might end up in a difficult situation where you have a perfectly acceptable legal document that you cannot utilize because of the bank.

So what am I saying?  Well, you could run into a problem at a bank and since you won’t find out until it’s maybe too later to fix the problem, it’s always the safer practice to update your estate when you move.

By the way, that process is relatively simple.  If you have a Missouri living trust, you’ll need to change the “governing law” provision in your trust document.  It will be Missouri and need to be changed to whatever state you have moved to.  Note that this is a relatively simple change because you’re simply amending your trust to change that one provision, not re-writing the whole thing.

Since you might be moving closer to other loved ones who might now be closer than they were before, it might make sense to add them as power of attorney, healthcare proxies, executors and trustees.

A qualified and experience estate planning lawyer where you move to can review your Missouri plan and help you pinpoint other changes, if any.