Divorce. In some cases, the process is easy, but in others, it can be quite challenging on a legal, personal, and emotional level. Whether your divorce is easy or hard, there are almost certainly more legal issues to address during and after a divorce to ensure that your assets are protected, you've planned appropriately for yourself and for any children, and that you've got plans in place to protect yourself by ensuring the appropriate persons are empowered to make decisions for your healthcare and financial management in the event of your incapacity. The steps needed from an estate planning perspective go beyond dividing assets and obtaining a divorce decree, and are often outside the specialized knowledge of very good family law attorneys.

So, what do you need to do? In a nutshell, the basics are that you need to ensure that you address the following four issues during, and after your divorce:

1. Update your Will / Prepare a Will If You Had Not Yet Done So.

2. Update your Advance Directive for Healthcare.

3. Update your Durable Power of Attorney.

4. Identify those non-probate assets you have with beneficiary designations on file with custodians, and revise those beneficiary designations as appropriate.

In other posts in this series, we'll address each of the items above, speaking specifically of concerns that someone going through a divorce or recently divorced may have, and discuss ways to address those.

The biggest takeaway, however, for those in the divorce process or those who have recently completed it is this: Don't bury your head in the sand. Get your planning done to finish up the process.

If you'd like FREE information (seriously, it's free, with no strings attached) about estate planning in Georgia, contact our office and request it. And, if you are divorcing or have been recently divorced, let us know so we can include some additional information that we believe will be very relevant for you. For your free information, contact The Beck Law Firm, LLC at 678-344-5342.