Second or Third Marriages

Life happens. This includes divorce, remarriage, and the blending of families. You may have adapted to changing circumstances and created new daily routines for yourself and those you love. That’s great and we applaud you. But have you considered the underpinnings of your life in the process? The structure of the plan you once put in place to protect and preserve your estate so carefully may no longer reflect the wishes, address the concerns, or accomplish the objectives you have today. You may also have acquired new assets by marriage, for which no estate planning has yet been done.
If you have vacation property, a family business, or a residence, for example, you may want to consider how a change in marital status affects the entitlement to those assets should you pass away. Whether you are the sole owner of such assets, or have acquired them through marriage, it makes sense to reconsider how your property will be distributed after you’re gone.

Our clients who have already been through a divorce, with or without remarriage, know from experience how emotional and complicated things can get. Wouldn’t you like to save your beneficiaries this kind of stress if you could? We can introduce you to estate planning tools that will protect, control, and transfer your assets and accumulations with due respect to everyone concerned, including your present spouse; children from a current marriage; and children from a former marriage or marriages, and will even attend to the possible remarriage of a surviving spouse.

Widows and widowers who have remarried after a life-long marriage may be unaware that this marriage grants preferential rights to the deceased spouse, not to the decedent’s family. The unintended fallout from this inconstant situation can be prevented with careful asset transfer planning.