When you die, will your spouse grieve until the day he or she dies? Or will someone else come along and become the new spouse?
Does your will address this possibility?
In this age of longer lifespans, chances are good that another husband or wife may replace you after your demise. That possibility raises a number of issues you probably haven’t considered. What if:
- the new spouse winds up inheriting everything? Will anything go to your kids?
- your spouse falls prey to an opportunistic gold digger?
- your spouse ends up spending everything on the new spouse’s nursing home care?
The list of potential bad endings goes on and on. But you can do something to ensure a better outcome.
Leaving assets to your spouse in a trust can provide the security you desire, while limiting the potential havoc to your estate planning intentions. A well drafted trust can be easy to administer and leave your spouse living comfortably. But it can also contain provisions that restrict where the money can go in the event your surviving spouse remarries or cohabitates.
A trust with remarriage protection not only ensures that your assets go where you intend, it actually does the surviving spouse a favor by making exploitation less likely.
At our estate planning workshops, we discuss many techniques for making your estate secure after you are gone. The workshop is free, but you must register ahead of time to make sure you have a seat.
