Estate Planning After A Divorce

Roughly half of all marriages end in divorce, many after having produced children. Parents remarry, often with someone with his or her own children, and a new family entity is created. The blended family of “mine, yours, and ours” is now commonplace. Consider these statistics:

• About 75% of people who are divorced will remarry.
• Approximately 43% of all marriages are remarriages for at least one spouse.
• About 65% of remarriages involve children from a previous marriage and result in blended families.
• Around 60% of remarriages end in another divorce.

The Need To Balance The Interests Of Blended Family Members

Each spouse may bring both children and assets acquired in a previous marriage. The blended family creates a variety of challenges; among them is estate planning to include all family members. You will need to balance the needs of your spouse and those of your children from your previous marriage, which requires clarifying goals and making a detailed plan to meet those goals. The best way to do this is to hire an Arizona estate planning attorney who regularly works with blended families to guide you through the process.

Phoenix Area Estate Planning Lawyers

At the Arizona law firm of Gorman Law Group, PLC, our lawyers are well-experienced in estate planning for blended families. When you remarry, we will help you update your estate plan or create a new one that better reflects the needs of your new family and ensures that all of your children are included. We will see that your estate and that of your new spouse are set up in a way that will avoid conflict or contentiousness and will ensure that no child is disinherited, which can sometimes happen inadvertently without professional planning.

We will work with you to determine your personal desires for the distribution of your assets and will devise strategies to meet your unique goals. We will also review insurance policies or retirement accounts to make certain you have named beneficiaries reflecting your new family situation, as it is common for people to forget about changing their designated beneficiaries after a divorce.

Legal Estate Planning Services Can Help Protect Your Children

At Gorman Law Group, PLC, we limit our practice to estates and trusts and related law. We have honed our estate planning skills in nearly 30 years of combined experience and are well equipped to provide you with a full range of estate planning services, including wills, trusts, beneficiary accounts, guardianships, conservatorships and more, as part of a plan that will fairly distribute your assets along with those of your spouse in a manner that is equitable for all concerned when you are living in a blended family and will protect your children in the event of your death.

Call the law offices of Gorman Law Group, PLC, at 623-278-6102 if you are a divorced parent and have already or are considering remarrying. We will arrange a time for you to come in and speak to an estate planning lawyer fully experienced in blended family issues. There is no cost for the initial consultation. We have offices in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Sun City and Sun City West for your convenience, and weekday and evening appointments are available.