Short answer: Marriage, divorce, a new child, the death of a named executor or trustee, a real change in your assets, or a move out of state are the events that should send you back to your will and trust, not a calendar reminder. If you never make the update and the plan lapses, California’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits, not you, under Probate Code § 6400.
Which life events actually require an update?
Marriage and divorce are the two biggest triggers. Getting married usually means adding a spouse to your plan and reworking how community and separate property are handled. Divorce means the opposite: pulling your ex-spouse out of every document where they still appear, including retirement accounts and life insurance, where a stale beneficiary designation can override what your will says.
A birth or adoption means naming a guardian for that child and deciding how and when they inherit. Without a named guardian in your documents, a court decides who raises your child, and that decision may not match what you would have chosen.
The death of anyone named in your plan, whether an executor, a trustee, a guardian, or a beneficiary, means that role or share needs a new answer. A document that still names someone who has died does not update itself.
A significant change in what you own, a new business, an inherited property, a large inheritance you received, or a real loss, changes what your plan needs to account for. And moving to a different state changes which state’s law governs your documents, particularly around community property and how real estate is handled.
What actually happens if I skip the update?
Nothing happens immediately, which is exactly the problem. The consequences only show up after you have lost the ability to fix them. If your will or trust never gets updated and you die without a valid plan in place, California’s intestate succession statutes take over and decide who inherits your estate, not your actual wishes. For a surviving spouse, that generally means all community and quasi-community property, but separate property is split among a spouse, children, parents, or siblings according to a fixed statutory formula under Probate Code § 6401.
Skipping the update also does not get you out of probate. A will, current or outdated, still has to go through the court before it takes effect. Only a properly funded revocable living trust moves assets to beneficiaries without court involvement, and only for the assets that were actually retitled into the trust’s name. A new property, account, or business you never moved into the trust sits outside it and can end up in probate anyway, regardless of what your trust document says.
Which documents need to be reviewed?
Your will and any revocable living trust are the starting point. If either one still names an ex-spouse, an outdated guardian, or leaves out a child born after the document was signed, that language needs to change, not just your intentions.
Beneficiary designations on life insurance, retirement accounts, and payable-on-death or transfer-on-death accounts generally control over whatever your will says. An ex-spouse or a person who has since died, still listed as a beneficiary on a 401(k) or life insurance policy, can end up receiving that asset even if your will says otherwise. These forms live with the account custodian, not your attorney’s file, so they are easy to forget and worth checking on their own.
Your power of attorney and health care directive name the people who make financial and medical decisions for you if you cannot. If the person you named has died, moved away, or is no longer someone you would trust with that authority, the document still says otherwise until you sign a new one. These documents work off general agency and health care law rather than a single statutory dollar threshold, so the fix is usually a straightforward replacement naming your current choice.
Do I need a full rewrite or just an amendment?
It depends on how much changed. A single beneficiary swap or a change of successor trustee can often be handled with a trust amendment or a will codicil rather than starting over. A divorce, a move to a new state, or a change big enough to affect how your estate should be structured, such as a new business or a significant inheritance, usually calls for a full review of the underlying trust and, in some cases, a new will rather than a patch on top of the old one.
Either way, the update is only complete once the new documents are signed, and any newly acquired asset is actually retitled or beneficiary-designated to match. A signed amendment sitting in a drawer next to an unretitled deed protects nobody.
Figures verified July 2026.
What to do next
If you have been through a marriage, divorce, birth, death of someone named in your plan, a major financial change, or a move since your documents were last signed, pull them out and read them against your current situation. Where what you find no longer matches your life, that is the update to make first, and an estate planning attorney can tell you quickly whether it needs a full rewrite or a simple amendment.
Want a straight read on where you stand?
Talk to Eric. A free 30-minute call, no pitch. He’ll tell you where you’re exposed, what it would cost to fix, and what you can skip.
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