Spring Cleaning Your Estate Plan: 8 Critical Updates for 2026

11 Mar Spring Cleaning Your Estate Plan: 8 Critical Updates for 2026

TL;DR

• Estate plans should be reviewed regularly because life circumstances and laws change.
• A California estate plan review should cover eight key areas: beneficiary designations, trust funding, trustees and executors, digital assets, healthcare directives, tax considerations, guardian designations, and property titles.
• Even a single outdated item can send assets through probate or distribute them in ways you did not intend.

This checklist provides a practical way to review your plan before the year moves forward.

Time for a California Estate Plan Review? Don’t Skip This.

Every spring, people do the same thing: clean out closets, update devices, review subscriptions. But very few think to open their estate plan. That’s a costly oversight. A California estate plan review doesn’t take long, but skipping it can cost your family months of delay, thousands in court costs, and serious emotional strain.

Estate plans don’t stay current on their own. Marriages end. Children grow up. Trustees move away. New assets arrive and old ones disappear. Tax laws shift. An estate plan drafted five years ago may not reflect your life today — and if it doesn’t, it may not do what you intended.

Here are eight critical updates to work through this spring. You don’t need to tackle all of them at once. But each one matters.

Update 1: Review Your Beneficiary Designations

Beneficiary designations override your will and your trust. That’s not a typo. If your life insurance policy still names an ex-spouse, your ex inherits — regardless of what your current estate plan says. Courts have upheld this outcome repeatedly.

Check designations on every account that uses them:

• Retirement accounts (IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s)
• Life insurance policies
• Bank accounts with payable-on-death (POD) designations
• Investment accounts with transfer-on-death (TOD) instructions
• Annuities and pension plans

Common mistakes: naming a minor child directly (they can’t legally control assets without a court-appointed guardian or trustee), failing to name a contingent beneficiary, or keeping a deceased person as primary beneficiary. The IRS provides guidance on beneficiary rules for retirement accounts that’s worth reviewing if you’re unsure about your options.

If you’ve had a major life event in the past three years — marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, a death in the family — your designations almost certainly need updating.

Update 2: Verify Your Trust Is Actually Funded

Creating a living trust without funding it is one of the most common and most expensive estate planning mistakes. An unfunded trust does nothing. If your assets aren’t titled in the name of the trust, they’ll still go through California probate — a court process that typically takes 12 to 18 months and costs between 4% and 6% of the gross estate value under California Probate Code §10810.

Start with real estate. Every property you own should be held in the name of your trust, not in your personal name. That requires a recorded deed. If you’ve purchased property, refinanced, or acquired anything new since the trust was created, verify that it was properly titled.

Then check your financial accounts. Bank accounts, investment accounts, and brokerage accounts should be retitled in the trust’s name. Contact each institution and ask for a current ownership confirmation.

Finally, think about what you’ve acquired recently. New vehicles, a vacation property, a rental unit, an investment account opened last year. Each needs to be reviewed and, where appropriate, transferred into the trust. Guideway handles deed preparation and recording — learn more at guidewaylegal.com/deeds. One deed transfer at the time of purchase costs a fraction of what probate will cost if the asset is left out.

Update 3: Assess Your Trustees and Executors

The people you named to manage your estate when you can’t may no longer be the right choice. This happens more than most people realize.

Ask yourself about each person you’ve named — successor trustee, executor, co-trustee, agent under your power of attorney:

• Are they still alive and in good health?
• Do they still live close enough to handle California-specific tasks?
• Have your relationships changed — divorce, estrangement, a falling out?
• Do they still have the financial and organizational capacity for this role?
• Have they agreed to serve? (Naming someone without their knowledge creates problems.)

An elderly, ill, or geographically distant trustee or executor can slow everything down. Someone who has become a source of family conflict can become a source of legal conflict. Review these designations with fresh eyes.

Also, confirm that you’ve named successors. If your primary successor trustee can’t serve, who steps in? Most plans should name at least two backup options.

Update 4: Update Your Digital Asset Inventory

Digital assets are now a significant part of most people’s financial lives — and most estate plans don’t address them adequately. These include:

• Online bank and brokerage accounts
• Cryptocurrency wallets (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others)
• Online businesses, e-commerce stores, or monetized websites
• Social media accounts with followers or revenue
• Cloud-stored files, photos, and documents
• Subscription services, loyalty rewards, and digital purchases

The challenge with digital assets is access. Without login credentials, private keys, or explicit authorization, even your successor trustee may be locked out permanently. Cryptocurrency held in a personal wallet with no accessible private key is unrecoverable.

Your estate plan should include either a digital asset inventory with clear access instructions or a reference to a secure password manager that your trustee can access. California’s Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), originally enacted in 2016 and expanded in 2024 by SB 1458, gives your trustee, executor, and agent under a power of attorney legal authority to access these accounts — but only if your documents are set up correctly to authorize that access.

This is also a good time to review which accounts have their own digital beneficiary designations or TOD instructions, and make sure they align with your overall plan.

Update 5: Review Your Healthcare Directives

These are two separate documents that serve different purposes — and both deserve a spring review.

Advance Healthcare Directive is a legal document appropriate for every adult, regardless of health. It does two things: names the person who will make medical decisions if you can’t (your healthcare agent), and records your general wishes about treatment and end-of-life care. It is not a medical order — it’s a set of instructions that guides your agent and informs your care team. 

Review your advance healthcare directive if:

• Your designated healthcare agent is no longer the right choice — health, relationship, or geography has changed
• Your stated treatment wishes no longer reflect your current values or medical situation
• Several years have passed and you haven’t looked at it since you signed it

A POLST form (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) is different. It is a medical order — signed by both the patient and a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant — that translates treatment wishes into specific, actionable instructions emergency providers are legally required to follow. It is not for everyone. POLST is designed for people with serious illness, advanced age, or frailty — people who may actually need EMS to act on their treatment preferences in a real emergency. It must be completed with a healthcare provider, not independently.

Review your POLST if:

• Your medical condition has changed significantly and the orders no longer reflect your current situation
• You’ve changed providers or care settings and need to share updated documentation
• Your treatment preferences have changed and the existing form no longer represents your wishes

Neither document is a one-time form. People’s preferences around medical care evolve, especially as they age or face new health realities. Your plan should reflect who you are now, not who you were when you first signed.

Update 6: Factor In 2026 Tax Changes

The federal tax landscape changed significantly this year. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, permanently increased the federal estate and gift tax exemption to $15 million per individual — up from $13.99 million in 2025. For married couples, the combined exemption is $30 million. This is now permanent and indexed for inflation going forward, per the IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32. The annual gift tax exclusion remains at $19,000 per recipient in 2026.

For most California families, these changes don’t create a federal estate tax issue — $15 million is a high threshold. But there are still tax-related reasons to review your plan this spring:

• If your plan was structured around the old TCJA sunset (which would have dropped the exemption to roughly $7 million), those provisions may now be unnecessary or counterproductive.
• Annual gifting strategies — giving up to $19,000 per year to each recipient without affecting your lifetime exemption — are still effective wealth-transfer tools worth reviewing with a tax professional.
• California has no state estate tax. But if you own out-of-state property or have assets in states with their own estate taxes, those rules may apply separately.

Guideway prepares legal documents — we are not tax advisors. If your estate has grown, you hold complex business assets, or you want to revisit gifting strategies in light of the new law, we can refer you to a qualified tax professional.

Update 7: Check Your Guardian Designations

If you have minor children, the guardian designation is one of the most important decisions in your entire estate plan. It belongs in your will — not your trust — and it must reflect your current thinking. Under California Probate Code §1500, courts give significant weight to a parent’s written nomination when selecting a guardian for minor children.

Reassess your guardian choice if:

• The named guardian’s circumstances have changed significantly (new family, health issues, different values around parenting)
• Your relationship with that person has changed
• Your children have grown older, and a different guardian might be better suited to their current stage
• The named guardian has moved far away, making a California-based guardianship impractical

Also, confirm that you’ve named backup guardians. If your first choice can’t serve, the California courts will appoint someone — which may not align with your wishes. Most plans should name at least two successors.

Consider writing a letter of intent alongside your legal documents. It’s not legally binding, but it gives the guardian context about your values, your children’s routines, and your hopes for how they’ll be raised.

Update 8: Verify Your Property Titles

Property titles are where estate plans quietly break down. The document says one thing; the title records say another. When that happens, the title controls — not your trust.

Walk through each property you own and confirm:

• Is it titled in the name of your trust, not in your personal name?
• If held in joint tenancy with a spouse or partner, does that still fit your plan?
• If you refinanced in the last few years, was the property retitled back into the trust after the refi? (Many lenders temporarily remove trust ownership for refinancing, and this step is easy to miss.)
• Do the property ownership records match what your trust document says?

You can verify recorded deed information through your California county recorder’s office — most counties now offer online deed searches. Community property rules in California add another layer of complexity, particularly for married couples. Assets acquired during marriage are generally community property, but how they’re titled affects how they’ll be treated in your estate plan.

Guideway handles deed preparation and recording for California homeowners. If you’ve acquired new property or completed a refinance and aren’t sure how the title reads, learn more about our deed transfer services or review our trust funding guide to understand the full process.

When Should You Update Your Estate Plan?

Use this reference to assess urgency for your situation:

Life Event	Why Update Needed	Documents to Review	Urgency Level
Marriage or divorce	Beneficiaries and trustees may need to change; community property rules shift	Trust, Will, POA, Healthcare Directive, beneficiary designations	Immediate
Birth or adoption of a child	Guardian designations required; trust distributions need updating	Will, Trust, Guardian designations	Immediate
Death of a trustee, executor, or beneficiary	Successors must be named to avoid gaps in plan execution	Trust, Will	Immediate
Purchase or sale of real property	Deed must be retitled into trust; trust schedule needs updating	Trust, Deed, Title records	Within 30 days
Move to a new state	State laws vary on estate documents; some may need re-execution	All documents	Within 60 days
Business formation or sale	Business interest ownership must align with trust and succession plan	Trust, Operating Agreement, Buy-sell agreements	Within 60 days
Significant change in asset values	Distribution provisions or tax strategies may no longer be appropriate	Trust, Beneficiary designations	Annual review
3+ years with no review	Life changes accumulate; laws change; documents may be stale	All documents	Schedule now

Your Next Step: Put It on the Calendar

Estate plans don’t maintain themselves. The families who avoid probate, protect their assets, and get their wishes honored treat their estate plan as a living document — not a one-time task.

Spring is the right time. Not because the law requires it, but because life keeps moving. If you’ve had any of the changes above in the past year — a new property, a changed relationship, a new business, a growing portfolio — at least one of these eight updates likely applies to you.

Guideway has helped Bay Area families prepare and update estate planning documents since 2003. We are registered legal document preparers — not attorneys — and we provide self-help document preparation services at your direction. You can find our registration information through the California Courts self-help center. If you’re ready to review your plan, update outdated provisions, or get documents in place for the first time, we’re here to help.

Schedule your California estate plan review today:

• Walnut Creek: (925) 407-1010
• Oakland: (510) 452-2320
• Tri-Valley: (925) 479-9600
• San Francisco: (415) 729-7232

We can’t give legal advice, but we can help you bring your documents up to date.

Key Terms

Beneficiary Designation: The person or entity named to receive assets from accounts like life insurance or retirement plans. These designations override your will and trust.

Trust Funding: The process of transferring ownership of your assets into your living trust. An unfunded trust offers no probate protection.

Successor Trustee: The person who will manage your trust assets if you become incapacitated or after you die.

Digital Assets: Online accounts, cryptocurrency, social media profiles, digital photos, and other electronic property that require special planning for access and transfer under California’s RUFADAA.

We are not attorneys. We can only provide self-help services at your specific direction. Guideway Legal Document and Mediation Services is not a law firm, and we cannot represent customers, select legal forms, or give legal or tax advice. Services are provided at customers’ requests and are not a substitute for advice of a lawyer. Because legal needs vary from individual to individual, you should seek the advice of a licensed attorney if you have any questions regarding the selection of appropriate forms. You can find an attorney at a State Bar approved Lawyer Referral Service. Prices do not include court costs. Guideway is based at 925 Ygnacio Valley Road, Suite 204, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. We are registered as Contra Costa County LDA #188 and Alameda County LDA #169, expiry January 2027.