The Importance of Updating Estate Plans

In the Editor’s Note of the September 2011 issue of Private Wealth, Hannah Shaw Grove discusses the need for individuals to update their estate plans. Grove notes that, according to the media, Amy Winehouse had a very up-to-date estate plan that will dispose of her $16 million fortune in the way she specified.

Groves explains that all individuals, both those in the middle class and those that are ultra-affluent, tend to be lax when it comes to updating estate plans. In a survey of 294 affluent professionals, of the 58.8% who had estate plans, 91.9% and 50.3% had witnessed an increase in wealth or a life changing event, respectively, since the plan was drafted. Groves encourages estate planning attorneys to discuss updating estate plans with their clients and to schedule meetings to discuss their clients’ estate planning efforts.

See Hannah Shaw Grove, Rocking the Estate Plan, Private Wealth (September 2011).