Estate planning is an important decision that people in Washington need to make. This is true regardless of their income, assets and property. Often, people who do not believe they need a basic estate planning document – specifically a will – are surprised at how much property they have when they do a comprehensive inventory.
Not having a will leaves their property at the mercy of state laws for dying intestate and can stoke dispute among prospective heirs. With that in mind, it is important to have a will. Still, when people have written a will, their lives will inevitably change. This happens with younger people who create an estate plan, but it can also impact older people. To address life changes, knowing what a codicil is and how it can be useful is key.
Know the details about a codicil to a will
When a person writes a will, it reflects their situation in that moment. That does not mean changes will not be necessary. A codicil precludes the need to write an entirely new document and lets the person – the testator – make individual changes to address the new circumstances.
For example, people could see their family expand after they have completed the will. It could mean having a child of their own, a grandchild or great-grandchild. Some people were married at the time they wrote the will and got divorced. For others, it was the opposite. Given the new situation, they want to update the will.
Some will have business and financial changes. Perhaps they owned a business that would have been passed along as part of the will, but decided to sell it. Since it is no longer a concern, the will should be changed to address the new landscape. A person could have received a windfall and needs to update the will because of their good fortune.
In difficult situations, it can also be necessary to change the will. Families have disputes and disagreements that lead to a person being removed from a will. A person names a personal representative to oversee their affairs after they are gone. If that individual is no longer able to fulfill the duties or the testator simply wants to make a change, they can achieve that through a codicil.
This does not mean a codicil will be free of complications. According to state law, codicils are impacted by decisions the testator has made regarding the will. If they revoke the will and there is a codicil, the codicil will also be revoked unless revoking it would contradict what the testator intended to do.
Update your will as needed
People who take the necessary step of writing a will are doing so to make sure their affairs will be settled as they want. Despite that, there could and likely will need to be updates to the document. A codicil can achieve that.
As with any area of estate planning, it is wise to know the details of how to write a will, add a codicil or make any other decision that impacts the plan. Knowing how to do so to make sure the document withstands scrutiny and the person’s objectives are achieved may require professional assistance.