​Do Your Parents Have an Estate Plan?
 
If you are part of the sandwich generation—caring for both your children and your parents at the same time—it is crucial that you know whether or not your parents have an existing estate plan. While the final decisions within their estate plan rest with them, creating a comprehensive estate plan is an absolute necessity, regardless of when it is done.
 
The thought of speaking with your parents about important and often sensitive topics like their finances and estate planning probably makes you want to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Nonetheless, having this conversation is the key to ensuring that your parents are able to live their golden years without financial worries and that their wishes are carried out after their death.
 
Estate Planning for Your Parents
Initiating conversations about your parents’ future, especially concerning their finances, medical care, and memorial wishes, can be challenging, but it is undeniably one of the most important discussions you can have with them. Addressing these topics sooner rather than later benefits everyone involved and ensures greater peace of mind and preparedness for the future. This crucial dialogue should encompass plans for when one or both parents pass away as well as scenarios where they become incapacitated and unable to manage their own affairs. To help ensure that their estate plan is comprehensive and aligns with their wishes, consider discussing the following key areas with your parents:
 

• A team effort. Encourage your parents to compile a list of their advisors, starting with legal and financial professionals, including their contact information. This list should also include the contact information for your parents’ doctors so that whoever they nominate as their health care agent can reach them if necessary. Even if they prefer not to share the list immediately, they can create it and let you know where to find the information if the need arises.
• Will or a Trust. If you discover that your parents do not currently have a Will or Trust. it is probable that they do not have other essential estate planning tools, as these important tools are often created as part of a comprehensive estate plan. If they do have a will in place, confirm when it was created, who the personal representative or executor is, and where the original wills are stored. Similarly, if you discover that they have a trust, you will want to confirm who the trustee is, whether or not they have funded property and financial accounts into their trust, and where the original trust documents are stored. Stress to them that you do not need to read their will or trust in its entirety, but knowing where to find the original documents is crucial to ensuring that their wishes are carried out when the time comes.
• Medical directives. While discussing your parents’ estate plan, confirm whether they have created an Advance Directive. This important tool allows someone to make medical decisions on their behalf if they are unable to make or communicate their own medical decisions. If you discover that they have an Advance Directive, encourage them to have a conversation with their chosen agent to ensure that the decision-maker understands your parents’ feelings and wishes about both their medical care preferences as well as their end-of-life care, such as how their medical affairs should be handled should they become incapacitated and whether or not they want to be on life support.
• Insurance policies. It is important for you or your parents’ trusted decision-makers to know what insurance policies they have and where documentation is located, especially if one or both parents become incapacitated. This includes health insurance (private or Medicare), life insurance, homeowner’s insurance, auto insurance, disability insurance, and long-term care policies.
• Financial, Investment, and Retirement Accounts. Encourage your parents to create a comprehensive list of their checking, savings, brokerage, mutual fund, pension, and retirement accounts. This list should include where each account is held, account numbers, and the names of any key contacts at the institution. Just as important, your parents should have a financial power of attorney in place so that a trusted individual can step in and manage these accounts if your parents are traveling, ill, injured, or otherwise unable to manage their affairs. An experienced estate planning attorney can draft this document, but it is also wise to ask whether the financial institutions involved require their own power of attorney forms, since these are often more readily accepted. Having a valid power of attorney ensures that someone can access and manage your parents’ accounts, whether checking, investment, or retirement, so that day-to-day expenses are covered and long-term financial needs are met during incapacity and beyond.

Why Estate Planning Matters
Failing to put together an estate plan often leads to chaos, excessive costs and taxes, unnecessary court involvement, inadequate incapacity planning, potential hurt feelings, delays in distributing inheritances, and even unexpected outcomes after death.
Fear and discomfort can keep you from having this important estate planning conversation with your parents. As estate planning attorneys, we can provide your parents with guidance and advice on what options are available to them so that their wishes are followed upon their death.

Divorce and Your Estate Plan: Crucial Post-Divorce Updates You Can't Afford to Skip
After navigating the emotional turbulence of divorce, the last thing you want is for your ex-spouse to retain control over your finances, healthcare, or your children’s inheritance. Yet, by neglecting to update your Estate Plan, that’s exactly what could happen.
The divorce decree settles your past, but your Estate Plan secures your future. A complete review is essential to ensure your assets and medical wishes are truly directed to the people you choose—your loved ones—and not the person you just divorced.

Top Issues to Address Immediately After Divorce
While state laws in Oregon may automatically revoke some bequests or appointments upon divorce, you must take proactive steps to confirm your intentions are legally ironclad.
1. Review and Re-Execute Key Documents

• Will or Trust: Any appointment (Trustee, Personal Representative or Beneficiary) you previously assigned to your ex-spouse is likely invalidated by the divorce. You must draft a new Will or Trust to name new fiduciaries and ensure gifts go to your intended heirs.
• Power of Attorney (POA) and Advance Directive: These documents grant others the power to make financial and medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated. Revoke the old documents and appoint new agents immediately.

2. Verify and Update Beneficiary Designations
This is a critical step many people forget. Unlike Wills, beneficiary designations on financial instruments often override your Will's instructions.

• Life Insurance Policies: Review and update designations on all policies, especially those required by the divorce judgment, to prevent your ex-spouse from collecting.
• Retirement & Investment Accounts: Change the beneficiaries listed on 401(k)s, IRAs, annuities, and brokerage accounts.
• Deeds and Titles: Review ownership on real estate deeds, vehicle titles, and bank accounts.

3. Secure Guardianship and Inheritance for Minor Children
Divorce requires you to revisit your plans for your children's future, whether they include your ex-spouse or not.

• Update Guardianship: Align your legal documents with the current custody and guardianship arrangements.
• Protect Inheritances: Implement a plan, often via a Trust, for managing any inheritance your minor children receive. This ensures the funds are used to support your children according to your values, rather than being managed by an ex-spouse you may not trust with the money.

How Divorce Impacts Your Estate Plan in Oregon
If you're already in the process of a marital split, we understand your to-do list is anxiety-inducing—from dividing property to navigating custody. But taking a moment to address your Estate Plan now can save enormous stress later.
Your existing documents—Wills, Trusts, Healthcare Directives, and beneficiary designations—were created when your marriage was intact. If they remain untouched, you risk leaving your ex-spouse in control of major financial and medical decisions.
Here’s a breakdown of steps to consider, regardless of where you are in the divorce timeline:
Planning Before Divorce
While many formal changes must wait, advanced planning can alleviate future stress:

• Identify new Medical decision-makers for your Advance Directive.
• Determine new Financial and Legal agents for your Power of Attorney.
• Decide on new Personal Representatives (Executors) and Trustees.
• Start thinking about necessary changes to bank and investment accounts and beneficiaries.

Taking Action During Divorce
Some crucial updates can—and should—be made immediately:

• Update Power of Attorney and Advance Directive: You do not have to wait until the divorce is final to choose new agents who will act solely in your best interests.
• Establish a Contingency Trust: In case of your death before the divorce is finalized, your attorney can help create a new Trust and a pour-over Will to direct assets there, minimizing the amount of your estate your soon-to-be-ex might control.

Finalizing After Divorce
The decree is final, now it’s time for the comprehensive sweep:

• Comprehensive Review: Meet with your Estate Planning attorney for a full review of your entire estate plan and all assets and accounts.
• Draft New Documents: Your attorney will draft new legal documents that completely remove your ex-spouse and clearly direct your assets to your chosen loved ones.
• Account Security: Update and verify all changes to Deeds, titles, and bank accounts. Change all relevant passwords to accounts that hold financial or private information.

Don't Let the Past Control Your Future
Wherever you are in the divorce process, having a clear post-divorce Estate Plan is the single most effective way to lower stress by removing financial and legal unknowns.

Contact our office today to discuss the necessary updates. Let us help you secure your future and protect your legacy.

McKean & Knaupp Attorneys, LLC
503-846-0707
101 SW Washington St., Hillsboro, Oregon 97123

​​Things just changed whether they are heading off to college, the military, or still living at home.
✔️You no longer have the same parental authority; in fact, you will now be barred in many cases.
✔️You’re likely not thinking of estate planning while celebrating graduation. But, your next big step to guiding your young adult is helping them protect themselves.
✔️An "estate plan" sounds like something for Grandma and Grandpa, but for 18-year-olds, it's about being prepared for the unexpected and granting authorities in advance.
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