Your 401(k) beneficiary designation overrides your will. If your ex-spouse from 2008 is still listed, they get the whole account when you die, no matter what your will says. Federal law locks this in. Check your beneficiary forms now.
Your retirement account at work still says that the guy you divorced in 2008 will get it all. Then you die, 2008 guy gets every penny that is in your 401, your kids get nothing, and there is nothing that your trust or your will can do to fix it. Here's what nobody tells you. When you list someone as a beneficiary on these accounts, that overrides your will, it overrides your trust. It does not matter what you wrote in your plans, and it doesn't even matter if 2008 guy got remarried, he still gets the money. I've seen it time and time again, and the law on 401s is federal law, and there is no way to fix it. But it can be fixed right now. Check your 401 and all your other retirement accounts and figure out who you do have listed as beneficiary. And then comment the word protection to learn more about this and all the other classic estate planning mistakes, as well as how to create your own plan and what estate planning is all about. Because court battles over this kind of stuff can drain your estate faster than probate.
comment workshop.free still need plan to keep people out of court. learn how to in less than an hour
