Why You Need to Update Your Will After Divorce

Why is it so important to update your estate plan when your marriage fails? Under Washington law, any Will provision made “in favor of” a former spouse is automatically revoked upon dissolution or termination of the marriage, unless the divorce decree provides otherwise. The law treats the former spouse as if they had predeceased the spouse who made the Will. However, relying on the statute without updating a Will can lead to unexpected results. A recent opinion issued by Division II of the Washington Court of Appeals illustrates how.

In the case, In re the Estate of Mower, the court ruled that the statute invalidating Will provisions “in favor of” a former spouse did not disinherit relatives of that former spouse. In this case, Dana Mower executed a Will when he was married to Christine, leaving everything to her. It provided that if she failed to survive him, half of his estate would pass to Dana’s siblings, and half would pass to Christine’s brother and sister-in-law. These are not unusual Will provisions for a married person, and in all likelihood, Christine had a Will with an identical distribution scheme.

Years later, the marriage fell apart. Dana and Christine divorced, and Dana died shortly afterward. He had not updated his Will. While Christine had no interest in Dana’s estate by operation of the Washington law discussed above, the court held that her family members did. In reaching this conclusion, the court analyzed the statute and concluded that it was not the legislature’s intent to automatically disinherit any relative of a former spouse following divorce.

We have no way of knowing whether, post-divorce, Dana still wanted to distribute assets to his former wife’s family. In all probability, he never thought about it. The court’s opinion mentions that they were friends, but did that friendship survive the divorce? Maybe, maybe not. The lesson here is that you should update your estate plan upon dissolving your marriage, to avoid unexpected consequences.

Photo credit: Jennifer Pahlka on Flickr