When Should I Update My Will or Estate Plan?
By Joshua Harden, Attorney | Memento Mori Law
Reviewing a plan every few years is sensible, and important life changes can make a review more urgent.
Key Points at a Glance
Marriage or divorce: Changes in marital status can affect inheritance, appointments, and beneficiary designations. Do not assume every document or account updates automatically.
Children and grandchildren: Births, adoptions, deaths, and children becoming adults can change your wishes about guardians, trustees, and inheritances.
A move or major financial change: Buying a home, moving to another state, retiring, or receiving an inheritance may require coordinating deeds, accounts, and legal documents.
People named in your plan: Check whether your executor, trustee, and agents are still willing and able to serve, and whether backups are appropriate.
Beneficiary designations: Retirement plans and insurance may pass under beneficiary designations rather than the will. Review them separately.
Making valid changes: Avoid handwritten edits on signed documents. A valid codicil, trust amendment, restatement, or replacement may be needed.
A Practical Example
Suppose you signed a will ten years ago, when your children were in elementary school. Your chosen guardian may have moved away, your children may now be adults, and you may have purchased a home that was never coordinated with your trust. The will might still be valid, but it may no longer be the plan you would choose today.
An especially common oversight is changing a will but not the beneficiaries on a life insurance policy or retirement account. Those accounts often follow their own beneficiary instructions. A change in your family circumstances is a good time to check the actual designation on file with each institution.
What to Review Before You Act
Set aside your will, trust, powers of attorney, health care documents, deeds, and beneficiary designations. Ask: Are the people named still appropriate? Have assets been added or sold? Do the documents address what would happen if you became incapacitated? Is there a backup decision-maker?
Kansas and Missouri have their own requirements for estate planning documents and may treat particular property or family changes differently. If you moved across the state line, ask an attorney to review the documents together rather than assuming a valid document from your former state addresses every issue in your new circumstances.
At Memento Mori Law, attorney Joshua Harden helps individuals and families in Kansas and Missouri understand estate planning and estate administration. Schedule a consultation with Joshua Harden to discuss your particular circumstances.
What Changes After Marriage, Divorce, or a New Relationship?
Marriage can change who depends on your income, who shares ownership of your home, and whom you want to make financial or medical decisions. A plan prepared before marriage may not adequately address your spouse or the assets you now own together. In a second marriage, you may also want to balance support for a surviving spouse with inheritances intended for children from an earlier relationship.
Divorce presents a different set of questions. Review the people named as executor, trustee, agent, and beneficiary, as well as jointly owned property and beneficiary designations. Do not assume that divorce automatically changes every designation or document. A pending divorce can make timing and legal restrictions especially important; coordinate with your family-law attorney before making transfers.
Children, Grandchildren, and Changing Responsibilities
A new child or grandchild may prompt a review, but so can a child reaching adulthood. Guardianship nominations that once mattered for young children may no longer be necessary, while a young adult might now need their own health care and financial authorizations. If you have a child who requires ongoing support, an outright inheritance may not achieve your goals.
Think about the practical distribution of property. If one child works in a family business, another needs help with housing, and a third has independent finances, equal shares of each individual asset may not be workable. The question is not simply whether the percentages are correct; it is whether the plan can be administered fairly and as you intend.
Moving Between Kansas and Missouri
Moving across a state line does not necessarily invalidate a previously executed will, but it can expose differences in document formalities, property law, marital rights, probate procedures, and the treatment of decision-making documents. Owning real estate in both states can add complexity because real property is generally governed by the law of the state where it is located.
After a move, review the deed to your home, your agents' ability to act with local institutions, and whether the language in your documents still reflects your intentions. It is better to have a qualified attorney assess a working plan than to discard documents and start over without understanding what is already in place.
How to Conduct a Useful Estate Plan Review
Begin with a complete set of documents: wills, trust agreements and amendments, powers of attorney, health care directives, deeds, insurance policies, and beneficiary forms. Make a simple inventory showing which assets are individually owned, jointly owned, held in trust, or designated to pass to a beneficiary. This helps identify gaps that are invisible when reviewing only the will.
Next, review every person who has a role in the plan. Ask whether your first-choice executor, trustee, or agent is still willing, available, and appropriate. Consider alternates. Then read the distribution provisions as though the estate were being settled tomorrow. What would happen if a beneficiary had already died? Who would manage property for a minor? Would the family need to sell a house?
Finally, determine which changes actually require new documents. Some matters may call for a new will, trust amendment, updated deed, or beneficiary form. Handwritten changes or informal instructions can cause uncertainty. Keep signed originals accessible and tell the appropriate person where to find them.
How Often Is Often Enough?
A periodic review every few years is a useful reminder, but the calendar is less important than major changes in your circumstances. A new home, death in the family, serious illness, business sale, relocation, or a change in a trusted relationship can justify an immediate review. Changes in tax or estate law may also matter even when your family situation remains the same.
An estate plan is not a document you sign and forget. It is a set of instructions that should still work when someone else must rely on it. A focused review can confirm that your existing plan is sound or identify a small number of targeted corrections before they become costly problems.
Kansas and Missouri: Legal Rules and Sources
Signing and Changing a Will
Kansas: K.S.A. 59-606 generally requires a written will signed at the end by the testator or a person signing in the testator’s presence at the testator’s express direction, and attested by at least two competent witnesses who see the signature or hear an acknowledgment. The statute provides special rules and a narrow oral-will exception under K.S.A. 59-608. A notary alone does not replace proper witnesses.
Missouri: RSMo 474.320 establishes the traditional signed-and-witnessed will requirements. Effective August 28, 2025, Missouri also recognizes qualifying electronic wills under RSMo 474.540–474.564, including section 474.548, which permits two witnesses to sign in the testator’s physical or electronic presence subject to statutory requirements. Electronic wills are not simply unsigned PDFs or online templates. Marriage, divorce, amendments, and nonprobate beneficiary designations must be reviewed separately.
Authority to Act During Life
Kansas: K.S.A. 58-652 sets out formal requirements for a durable financial power of attorney, including language establishing durability, signature, date, and acknowledgment requirements. A durable power can continue despite incapacity, but it does not give unlimited powers. Recorded powers and their revocation may raise additional recording requirements.
Missouri: RSMo 404.705 addresses the language and requirements for a durable power of attorney, while RSMo 404.710 addresses the scope of general powers and statutory limitations. An agent’s authority depends on the document and the law; some transactions need express authorization. Neither a financial power of attorney nor a medical directive should be assumed to cover every decision.
Explore Related Articles
Missouri Electronic Wills and Estate Documents: 2025 Law
Missouri enacted the Uniform Electronic Wills Act effective August 28, 2025 (RSMo 474.540–474.564). Section 474.548 recognizes electronic wills executed with the specified testator signature and two witness signatures in physical or electronic presence. This does not make every emailed, typed, scanned, or electronically signed document a valid will. The statutory definitions, execution formalities, custody and certified-copy rules, and the specific document must be evaluated.
Separately, RSMo 474.560 authorizes electronic execution of qualifying estate planning documents such as powers of attorney, trusts, beneficiary deeds, and health care directives, subject to other applicable legal requirements. Section 474.560 does not replace the special electronic-will rules. Kansas execution and recording requirements are separate and should not be assumed identical.
Missouri Electronic Wills: 2025 Law and Witness Requirements
Missouri enacted a separate electronic-wills framework effective for wills of decedents who die on or after August 28, 2025. RSMo 474.548 permits a qualifying electronic will to be signed by the testator (or another individual at the testator’s direction and in the testator’s physical presence) and signed by at least two witnesses in the testator’s physical or electronic presence, subject to the statute. RSMo 474.540 through 474.564 contain additional definitions, requirements, and rules for electronic wills. The separate RSMo 474.560 rule authorizing electronic witnessing of other estate-planning documents excludes wills from that particular provision, but does not prohibit electronic wills under RSMo 474.548. A video call or electronic signature alone does not guarantee a valid will; the complete electronic-wills framework must be satisfied. Kansas will execution and electronic-record requirements must be considered separately.
Electronic-Will Witnesses and Cross-State Execution
Missouri RSMo 474.548(3) adds a witness-location requirement when an electronic will is not accompanied by a contemporaneously signed self-proving affidavit: a witness must be a resident of a state and physically located in a state when signing. RSMo 474.550 separately provides rules for making an electronic will self-proved, including qualifying remote online notarization. RSMo 474.546 recognizes certain electronic wills validly executed under the law of another qualifying jurisdiction. These rules make it important to review the exact execution process, not just whether the will was electronically signed.
Have Questions About Your Estate Plan?
Every family’s circumstances are different. If you have questions about estate planning, probate, trusts, or protecting your loved ones in Kansas or Missouri, schedule a free consultation with Joshua Harden of Memento Mori Law.
Important Legal Disclaimer
Legal Information, Not Individual Legal Advice. This article provides general educational information about Kansas and Missouri law as of October 2026. Legal outcomes depend on the specific facts, applicable jurisdiction, the language and validity of documents, deadlines, court orders, and changes in statutes, regulations, and case law. An exception or additional requirement may apply even if it is not discussed here. Do not sign or change a will, trust, deed, power of attorney, beneficiary designation, or other legal document; transfer assets; miss a deadline; or take action in a court matter based solely on this article. Consult a qualified attorney about your particular circumstances before acting. Reading this article or contacting Memento Mori Law does not, by itself, create an attorney-client relationship.
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