What Happens When Older Parents Get Divorced

Transcript

good afternoon everyone welcome to pink mic legal confessions and happy holidays i know this is a really really fun time for everyone so i hope everyone's really spending time with their families and enjoying every minute of the time off or at least down time that you may or may not have so thank you for joining me today as you know who i am i'm attorney stephanie garces donat owner of garces law firm where we help parents prepare for the unexpected and today's episode we are discussing a very interesting topic one that maybe some of you have already experienced or have parents who know of parents that have been going through a divorce after 50. now we named this the way we did is because we want to know what happens what happens at this point when you are in the later part of your life and perhaps divorce becomes something that is unexpected and it happens every so often to individuals that are married for many years and um really just parents that have children maybe you stay together uh for the majority of your life but maybe there is a reason um why now divorce is an option so uh nothing wrong with that but you know i want to just say you know as children um and i can say this because i am a child of parents that that um you know have like every other parent just have things that uh they are concerned about and um us as children are always in the caught in the middle so i can say as children we want to believe that our parents are always going to stay together they're going to stay married without any issues forever and ever but uh however as you know sometimes things happen and people want um a change in their lives something happens where maybe uh they've been together for so many years another like you know it's probably better if we part ways so life changes things happen and it's really no one's fault they just happen so in this episode we're going to be covering why uh this is important to discuss uh what are things that your parents or people that our parents should consider especially um when they separate or divorce legally and their estate planning needs are certainly going to be changing and really need to be addressed because just as the divorce is bound to happen for some of us and we get there and we think okay that's off the list we're done with the divorce the estate planning that you have or don't have in place is something that needs to be addressed so we're going to talk about that today uh for all the viewers that are just joining us as i mentioned i'm attorney stephanie garces donat i'm the owner of garces law firm arlington heights illinois where we prepare for the unexpected for you and your families um especially today we're talking about parents that get divorced after 50 or parents that get divorced later in life however you want to spend that uh but really that's that's a topic we're covering today and you know as adult children we tend to um have a little more life experience right so as we become older uh we it's hard for us to imagine our parents separating having to go to different homes for the holidays like now uh maybe having to explain to the children that um grandma and grandpa are no longer together and so there's a lot of changes that happen when divorce happens and as adult children you're faced with having to uh sort of maneuver that and explain um you know to your family what's going on but but the concern is always your parents you want them to be taken care of especially for you you're the legacy so if you're uh watching this and your parents are um the topic we're discussing today this is relevant to you as well not just the parents watching so uh you'd be surprised you know how often this happens so in today's episode uh we're gonna talk about divorce how this is something that people don't plan for um especially life has a weird way of taking left turns on us so um some of the things we want to cover today is just um how complicated this can be um children when they're minors that's still um important for them to to be part of this conversation um and really um the estate planning is still a need even if your children aren't adult children so um instead of like custody battles that you face um and guardianship which you know could be like a minor child issue in a divorce um the concern shifts for adult children with finances uh retirement uh previously established accounts or you know financial plans that were put in place um some individuals already have an estate plan it's already been taken care of many moons ago but perhaps that was before the divorce took place so those are key areas that we have to consider and really um for the future of your family so when work has been done to plan for a future together now we have to undo it and we need to reassess it so the good news about any of this and the biggest takeaway is that you can actually update and modify your estate plan whenever you want um so that is something when i say whatever your want whatever you want i'm actually really saying you can do it but you have to be of sound mind there's a lot of requirements but assuming that you know what you're doing and you're you're healthy yes you can modify your documents so we're going to be discussing that um we're going to be discussing how to refamiliarize yourself with your existing estate plan you know you may need to dust that estate plan off to make sure that it's actually something that you want and it reflects what your current life is like i can't tell you how many times i've had clients that have their will or their trust that was created you know 20 years ago when their children were young and now they have adult children and haven't updated that so that is really important if that resonates with you make sure that you uh re-familiarize yourself with that uh i wanted to kind of discuss also the uh the terms that are thrown around in estate planning so wills powers of attorney trust what is the difference um why is one more important than the other especially when you have trust that you created with your spouse those are really important as well because those have two individuals that created that at the time and perhaps you may or may no longer be with your significant other so those are things we'll discuss today um we're also going to talk a lot about life insurance life insurance is important and i want to make sure everyone understands how it works so we'll touch about that that's a topic that we touch on actually every so often and i always say you know depending on who you got your life insurance with or if you have it or if you don't have it feel free to contact me i know many people that can do this work for you really important and also uh something that we always have to refamiliarize yourself with when a divorce happens when a change happens especially because uh those policies are ones that you have to have someone named as a beneficiary so we'll talk about that and how that can be used um as an important tool for estate planning and um also the trusts uh we talk about trusts a lot uh we'll talk a little bit about how those are used in other ways um especially when you have a trust you created and uh maybe there's some funds that are used for that maybe one of the spouses uses the funds as income those are things that really matter in a divorce now a divorce attorney can tell you really the nuances of uh what is the law when it comes to that but we certainly are familiarized um ourselves with these laws that are ever-changing because they're relevant because this is the type of things that pop up after a divorce or during a divorce when someone's reassessing their their trust or their estate plan making sure that it actually reflects who they want their things to to go to and their assets to be distributed um especially if the ex-spouse is no longer in the picture so uh another thing we're going to talk about is when to notify your estate planning attorney or perhaps when do you pick up the phone to call one uh when is a good time to do that those are things we're going to talk about so if you're thinking about getting divorced or in a divorce your estate planning attorney should be one of the first calls that you make outside of your divorce attorney and the reason is because in illinois at least there are different types of assets they're marital assets and then there's non-marital assets and these assets are may or may not be contributed to contributing to the divorce but they're certainly relevant um when we do these types of assessments so something to consider is making that phone call to make sure we offer free consultations so that you can be sure that your estate plan is going to be updated and modified again to include or not include certain things that perhaps are now relevant that weren't relevant 20 years ago so just keeping your estate planning attorney in the loop is always always a good idea and it really ensures that you're protected that your legacy is protected and everything that you worked really really hard for goes in the direction that you want it if something happens to you and so like i said that's always unexpected but you certainly have control of these sort of things now so make sure that you keep your estate planning attorney in the loop it's always always a good idea now uh one other thing too is financial documents we'll talk a little bit about that financial documents and powers of attorney i know we say a lot on this show but these documents are important also needs to be updated so it's not just about your will it's not just about your trust it's also about some of the other documents you may have in place powers of attorney are a great example of that that authorizes someone to give power you know to do certain things perhaps making your medical decisions or perhaps have access to your financial institution those are important documents you also want to dust off and check especially if you're going through a divorce or maybe considering it always a good time to do that and again consultations with us are free now um when i want to recap really quick is there's a lot to cover but we're going to kind of go in this in the direction of focusing today's discussion on life after divorce especially after 50 after your midlife and what do you do you know how do you handle that how do you protect your finances or if you're the child of someone that is facing divorce um or thinking about going through it you also have a lot to learn from this show to make sure that you are protected your parents are protected and that everyone goes so happy especially by planning ahead and that's really what what my job is so what happens when older parents get divorced well in general there's a lot so one of the first things we want to discuss is what is the most frequently asked questions i guess you could say in this arena so i kind of wanted to take those one by one one of the obvious members asked me um about this particular topic and they said is it possible to change the allocation of funds from my ex to my new spouse immediately and this is a wonderful question because it the answer is not always clear-cut and i say that because many people will think okay i want to get divorced like like yesterday but i haven't found uh follow the process i don't even know where to start i'm just sick of this marriage i want out so uh when that happens there's certainly ways that you can modify your estate plan but keep in mind that illinois law is very strict in that you know people have rights your spouse doesn't have less rights if you try to disinherit them however you can you can still disinherit your spouse that is not um against the law so to speak but it's something that is a timing thing so you may consider speaking with your divorce attorney or your estate planning attorney and think about the timing so in a scenario where you are going through a divorce and perhaps it's been sort of um finalized or you have a divorce decree which is kind of like you know getting the process going it's almost pretty much finalized that is a good time um to actually go ahead and modify your estate plan documents to remove your ex-spouse and to put whoever else you want in it and the reason i say that's good timing is because when you think about formalities to actually divorce someone formally and to get a divorce decree that is kind of a more clear-cut version of going through and and sort of divorcing that person so that they're no longer in the picture and all the financial or marital assets or non-married losses that you you had between your marriage has already been addressed so it's a lot easier for you to put together your estate plan to modify this so that you can actually remove them as a beneficiary or the person that's going to benefit from your trust and then you can put in whoever you want to distribute your assets or to be the beneficiary of your assets and so the timing is really important but nonetheless it's still worth doing even if you say you know i'm thinking about it and you still want to explore there's no reason not to uh it's just it's always recommended to try to formalize your divorce and modify your documents because that is really the best way to protect yourself so that there isn't any gray area at that point so that's a great question another question that the audience members have asked before on this topic is do i have to notify my ex if i remove them from my will again your will if you have your own will and you've created this many moons ago or perhaps you know you're creating one for the first time you know you don't have to notify anyone truly of your updates it's a private document you know as attorneys and clients we have what's called attorney client privilege so if you tell me something about your will and you want to modify it for whatever reason we have a conversation about that and i can't go out of my way to notify your spouse and anyone else your neighbor your kids now of course if you want to notify them you certainly can but that is up to you i wouldn't highly recommend it because why do you want to create more problems and poke the bear but keep in mind that if you are going through a divorce currently your will and uh maybe some of the we're going to say some of the modifications you may have made that can be what's called renounced so that means that your spouse can come back and say hey i'm supposed to be getting you know 50 percent of thursday i'm supposed to be getting this and that really becomes an issue if for example you were to pass away for example during the divorce or perhaps there's an issue with the will that becomes relevant at the time so the circumstances have to sort of align um but without going into the weeds do you have to notify your ex no you don't really have to notify them but you do want to consult with an attorney to make sure when to make those modifications how to make those modifications many people are unaware of the requirements of making modifications you know many of us think oh it's just you know you cross it out and you initial or perhaps you've seen um other other suggestions i mean people have i've seen a lot of different ways of modifying but there are legal ramifications for doing it incorrectly and modifying your will incorrectly so if you're modifying anything and you're hoping to remove someone you don't have to notify them but you certainly want to make sure it's done properly and you want to make sure you get a consultation to make sure if this is the right time and if it's a good fit for what we're trying to accomplish so that's just something to keep in mind another question that we get uh very often and one that i really enjoy answering is how i how can i transfer the ownership of life insurance policies and do i have to do that before i finalize my divorce now life insurance policies are a very important topic uh as a general rule life insurance policies as long as you have named the beneficiary you've named someone to have the benefit of that policy that life insurance is covered it's not going to be part of the estate um you can update your life insurance whenever you choose and i actually suggest if you were thinking this is something that is applicable to you or you've even maybe just had a policy for many years and you don't really know who it's with take the time to actually look into this because i can't tell you how many times people will say yes i have life insurance but they're not necessarily sure of the benefit of that life insurance as in the amount uh what kind of policy it is sometimes who is actually benefiting from this so you certainly want to make sure you know about the policy and who is your beneficiary so uh to transfer ownership of insurance policies you really just have to check to see who's going to benefit from this on paper who is in the beneficiary form in this policy to transfer that a chain chat you can do that on your own just call the company that does the life insurance or is actually you're paying every month you would know who this is by looking at your statement every month because sometimes there's a policy that you're paying per month right so that's the best way to sort of dismantle this thing because sometimes people are so overwhelmed with the idea of life insurance and quite frankly it's not the most exciting topic but it's really important because you have to make sure that you know the ins and outs of it so having a divorce that's happening you may have your spouse as a beneficiary of your life insurance and i would imagine if you're divorcing your spouse you may or may not want them as the beneficiary i mean i don't want to assume but for the most part generally you wouldn't want someone to have the benefit of a big or small life insurance policy if they're your ex spouse so you may consider looking into this and transferring this you know immediately and making sure that you of course consult with your attorney your estate planning attorney and your divorce attorney to make sure that what you're doing is proper and you want to make sure you move quickly because a lot of times people will procrastinate we talk about procrastination a lot on pink mic and i always tell people you want to make sure you're actually doing your part taking the time to contact the company get the policy read it make sure you know the amount what it covers and who is the beneficiary sometimes you can even put um you know someone as a as a secondary if the pers first person isn't living who is a secondary the contingent beneficiary so some policies have that as well make sure you ask your life insurance company and or representative they would be able to know so that is a really really good question and life insurance really should be a part of everyone's estate plan if at all possible um try now the other thing um that i get a question about is how soon can i add my new spouse's children's as beneficiaries well similar to what i said before depending on the timing of where everything is with your divorce whether it's been finalized or not it's still a good discussion to have with your estate planning attorney about this so everyone's family dynamic is different we talk a lot about families in the show we have people that have different types of families maybe you have um you know you have children or you don't have children or perhaps there's mixed families where you've married into a family and your spouse had children but you don't so if this is something that you're concerned about you can always change your beneficiaries in your estate plan and i've already talked about life insurance policies and same with retirement accounts and all of that you can always change those but when it comes to estate planning documents you can certainly do it but the timing is tricky you want to make sure that you consult with your attorney we talk about where you're at in your divorce have you filed for divorce and if you haven't you know what your options are now sometimes people will say well i don't want to get divorced just yet i want to get divorced later well you have to be conscious of this as well but sometimes later never comes i always talk about this on the show because when you're modifying things and you're wanting things to go in a certain way you do have to know illinois law does explain that if you are married and certain things are part of the marriage or they're called marital assets it's very likely that your spouse even if you are still with them and haven't divorced them they may still have a right to some of the things that you have so whether or not it's part of the marriage or marital asset is something your divorce attorney is going to fight over for you but as a matter of fact you can always modify your estate plan but you do have to be considered of the timing of a divorce and really have you filed those things all matter so it's hard to give a general answer on this because everyone's scenario is different but it's still worth discussing and you can certainly change your beneficiaries especially if we're talking about your new spouse's children if you want to add them you can certainly do that and i would even go as far as saying if you have a new spouse you may consider doing a joint trust sometimes a joint trust is an option where two people that are married um newly married now created joint trust is so basically that trust would uh distribute the assets according to their wishes and you can put who's in charge of doing that and who the beneficiaries actually are so you could certainly do that there's also options to do separate trusts you can still have a new spouse and some people will consider doing their own trust and that could be for personal reasons for liability purposes and there's a lot that goes into an estate plan whether or not you do one together or separate it really depends on your assets it really depends on your circumstances and situation but nonetheless there are options for you for adding your new spouse's children as beneficiaries uh one of the questions they get often and we love talking about this is do we offer virtual appointments absolutely we offer virtual appointments all the time because i think this is not going away the world now is used to being on camera with their professionals whoever it is i've even heard of physicians being on camera and doing um exams and whatnot not much different than what we do we do consultations but you know actually an exam i mean can you imagine that is the world we live in so we do offer free consultations uh virtually or in person if you are comfortable doing that and they're free we do 30-minute consultations in spanish and in english so we can certainly translate for your parents or your loved ones or yourself if you're looking for that most espanol so i always want to make sure everyone knows that because there is a lot of individuals who may need this estate plan but they don't really know where to turn whether that's because they don't know where to go or there's a language barrier so feel free to contact us for those consultations to make sure that you know there's different options out there virtual or in person is always always always a thing another topic that i said i was going to cover and i kind of wanted to to go back to really quick is when we talk about um you know your exes and your spouses and all of this uh you certainly want to uh also think about the will if you have minor children so uh sometimes people will uh have a will in place and they have each other like uh you know mom and dad have each other as as the guardians yes uh parents have rights to having and raising their own children but uh something to keep in mind um even if things don't pan out with your significant other is getting a will updated to make sure that the guardians that you've chosen or already have chosen previously are people that you still want to raise your children if you happen to have minor children and are getting a divorce and the reason i bring that up is because as we know when we're initially married you marry into the family that's what they say you get married you marry the family if you have a will that you haven't looked at in a while and you're getting divorced and you have minor children you may consider looking at that and updating that as well those are equally as important because even though the topic is getting divorced as you know later in life well there's many of you that may be getting divorced earlier in life and so i wanted to point this out as well because having a will that you've put in place or haven't put in place and getting a divorce very very important to look at that to revise it to refamiliarize yourself with what you put in that initially because you wouldn't want to put your ex ex-brother-in-law if in fact maybe he's not someone that you would want to raise your child um so that's just something to keep in mind so make sure you you look at that it's something that um many of us do not think about until later so i just want to make sure you're you're aware of that and um another thing too i talked a little bit about um when i started the show about trusts and how they're used to transfer transfer assets to heirs so uh keep in mind that a will and the trusts are estate planning documents we use them a lot and we use them interchangeably but they're very different so when we talk about trust on this show a trust uh has a lot more value at least according to the law it has a lot more value than a will that doesn't mean the will isn't necessary and important it just doesn't uh transfer and um protect certain assets uh that that it will would for example a home a home is a great example if you own your property where you currently live you may consider a living trust and really using that as an option for your estate planning tool to make sure that that property is transferred to whoever you want it to be transferred to um whether that is your ex-spouse or not really depends on your situation but that's just something to think about uh when we talk about divorce and uh properties many people say yeah i got divorced and now i have a condo that i bought and i'm living my best life that's great you certainly want to do that but keep in mind what i just said if you're looking at your estate plan you've modified everything please consider looking at your home if you own one as another asset to protect and that is something that i consult many clients on is let's make sure we have the proper estate plan so that that home is transfer to the errors that you want upon your death or something happens and you become incapacitated or something to that effect we can still protect the house so trusts are a lot more than just um you know what we discuss is you know a lot of it has to do with your assets your assets and we talk about beneficiaries but real estate too and passing things onto your heirs that um necessarily a will wouldn't wouldn't do is another reason to have a trust so just keep that in mind for those of you that are watching i just want to make sure use my platform to educate everyone to know that the trusts and the wills are equally as important but some of them have more weight according to the law than others especially when we're talking about divorce uh how do you contact me as always if you have any questions about anything that we've discussed today feel free to call or text us at the number you're going to see below anytime we are always answering calls and questions about clients that have a number of questions to ask consultations are free spanish and english is available so make sure you guys take advantage of this and as always i love hearing your feedback and i really appreciate everybody watching so i just want to make sure the viewers know that i want you to have a wonderful wonderful holiday and i really want to thank all of you now that we're at the end of the year that i can't thank enough you all enough for all the support that you've given um throughout my pink mic legal confessions this show has allowed me to connect with more people than um you deserve so i really appreciate that and i'm always welcoming feedback and feel free to share and watch this on youtube on my facebook page to make sure you're educated and that your family is protected because that really is my job securing your legacy and i want you to to be able to be educated in the process so feel free to reach out if i can help you with that journey and as always we do always meet here tuesdays at one o'clock so you can always always um check in later like i said to watch the videos but just make sure you don't wait you know don't wait to reach out to your family uh your children especially if you're facing divorce issues reach out to a divorce attorney we definitely know many if you're looking for someone that can do that reach out to us for estate planning needs we are happy to help so invite you here to meet me again next week at one o'clock at pink mic legal confessions where we're going to color cover another topic in the new year but in the meantime make sure you guys stay safe shares with your fellow parents your family and as always have a wonderful new year and thank you again until we meet again