When you get married, you expect that marriage to last forever. Unfortunately, the sad truth is many marriages end in divorce or one spouse dies and the other goes on to remarry. In those cases, you would generally want the assets you acquired during the first marriage to go to the children of that marriage. Without proper planning, those assets could end up being given to the children of your second marriage or your second or third spouse.
It is very simple; either you design a plan or your estate will be distributed according to the plan the government designed. The government’s plan does not and will not take into consideration your personal wishes. Their plan also does not consider the types of families we have today or the stages of life you are in. In California, there has been no significant change to the government’s distribution plan in over 100 years. However, there have been substantial changes to the types of families there are in the world today.
The only way to protect your family is to create a plan centered on your family’s personal needs. If you have children from a first marriage, create a plan that ensures the assets from that first marriage go to the children from that first marriage. Don’t risk letting your assets be divided by a plan that doesn’t know you or your wishes.
