The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s recent ruling in the case Ciani v. McGrath, highlights an important issue regarding updating a will when the creator fails to update a years-old document.
In that particular case, a now-deceased individual had married a second time after his first wife had passed away. However, the original will, which provided for his first wife and the children from that marriage, was never updated. This situation led to complicated estate litigation.
The second wife had initiated a claim for her statutory elective share and following this through led to arguments over the distribution of the assets. An update to the will could have avoided these significant problems.
It is important to remember, especially in cases involving second or third marriages, to sit down with your estate planning lawyer in MA after the divorce has been finalized to discuss your options for updating existing estate planning documents.
Forgetting about these matters could complicate things further for the loved ones that you intended to receive your assets after you pass away, forcing them to go through complex, extensive, and possibly expensive litigation. Lesson to learn from this — if there is a change to any circumstances in your life, schedule a time to sit down with your Massachusetts estate planning attorney to walk through what this means for your estate plan.
