Divorce and Heirs

 

Texas law will take care of a Will that you executed before divorce, but not contracts, advises Randy Michel, College Station divorce and estate planning attorney. This means that the intended heirs of your retirement accounts are not affected by what you write in your Will.

Your retirement accounts are contracts. You scribbled down beneficiary names on the account application – possibly decades ago. After your divorce, are these still the people you want to inherit your hard earned wealth? Have you even checked to see who those beneficiaries are?

A woman in Hawaii named her live-in boyfriend as a beneficiary of her IRA. Years later she was married to another man. As she lay dying of cancer, her husband tried to get the beneficiary form updated, but she was no longer mentally competent to make that change. The ex-boyfriend received the funds from her IRA.

If you want the right heirs to get all your wealth, you need to be proactive.