As a general rule, you should update your will every three to five years, and sooner any time a major life event, financial shift, or legal change makes your current document no longer match your intentions. The calendar review catches the slow drift; the event-based updates catch the sudden ones. Both matter, because an outdated will can send assets to the wrong people, trigger avoidable probate fights, or fail entirely on provisions you assumed were handled.
Why Every Three to Five Years
A will drafted five years ago may no longer reflect what you want. Relationships evolve, assets change hands, and laws get rewritten. Setting a calendar reminder to pull out your will every three to five years and reading it from start to finish catches problems you might not notice otherwise: a named executor who moved across the country, a bequest of property you sold, or a guardian choice you’d now reconsider.
This review doesn’t always produce changes. Sometimes you read it, confirm it still matches your intentions, and put it back. That’s a fine outcome. The point is to make the review a habit rather than waiting for a crisis to remind you the document exists.
Life Events That Should Trigger an Update Sooner
Marriage
Getting married while holding an existing will creates an immediate problem, though the consequences vary by state. A handful of states treat marriage as an outright revocation of any prior will. Most states leave the old will intact but grant the new spouse a share of the estate as if no will existed, carving out an intestate portion the will never anticipated. Either way, a will drafted before your marriage almost certainly doesn’t say what you now want it to say.
Divorce
Most states automatically treat a former spouse as having predeceased you for purposes of reading the will once a divorce is final, which voids any gifts to the ex-spouse and any appointments naming them as executor or trustee. “Most” is doing real work in that sentence: not every state follows this rule, and the provision may not extend to every type of appointment or beneficiary role. Relying on the automatic rule rather than updating the document is a gamble most estate attorneys would advise against.
A New Child or Grandchild
The birth or adoption of a child is one of the clearest reasons to revisit your will. Beyond adding a new beneficiary, you’ll want to name a guardian for any minor children — the person who would raise them if both parents died. If your will predates your children entirely, a court will choose the guardian for you, and that choice may not match what you’d have wanted. Grandchildren are another good prompt, especially if you want to leave them specific gifts or set up a trust that controls when they receive an inheritance.
Death of a Beneficiary or Executor
When someone named in your will dies before you do, what happens to their share depends on your state’s anti-lapse statute. In most states, a close relative’s share passes to their descendants; a gift to a friend or in-law typically fails and falls into the residuary estate, or into intestacy if the residuary also fails. Naming an alternate for each gift avoids the problem entirely. The same logic applies to your executor. If that person has died, become incapacitated, or simply isn’t someone you’d trust with the job anymore, the will needs a new name in that role.
Financial Changes That Make a Will Stale
A will that specifically bequeaths “my house at 123 Oak Street” becomes a problem the moment you sell that house. The gift fails. It doesn’t automatically redirect to a replacement property. The same issue arises with any asset you no longer own at death: a specific car, a particular investment account, a business interest you’ve since sold. If your financial picture has shifted meaningfully, your will’s specific bequests may be pointing at things that no longer exist.
Acquiring significant new assets cuts the other way. Real estate, a business, or a large inheritance can mean your will doesn’t account for a substantial portion of your wealth. Starting or selling a business is especially worth flagging because it introduces questions about valuation, succession, and whether business assets need separate treatment from personal ones. A major change in debt can also alter the math: if your estate owes more than expected, the bequests you planned may need to shrink, and knowing that in advance lets you adjust rather than leaving your executor to sort it out.
The Beneficiary Designations Your Will Can’t Override
This is where people get tripped up more than anywhere else. Your will does not control everything you own. Life insurance policies, 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, and any account with a named beneficiary pass directly to whoever is listed on that account’s beneficiary form. Your will is irrelevant for those assets, no matter what it says.
The U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed this. In Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont, the Court held that an ERISA retirement plan must pay benefits to whoever the plan documents name as beneficiary, even when a divorce decree purported to waive the ex-spouse’s interest. The participant had an easy way to change the designation but never did, and his estate lost the account to the ex-wife he’d divorced years earlier.1Justia Law. Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings and Investment Plan, 555 U.S. 285 (2009) In Hillman v. Maretta, the Court ruled that federal employee life insurance proceeds belonged to the named beneficiary — again, an ex-spouse — and that state law couldn’t redirect the money to anyone else.2Justia Law. Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U.S. 483 (2013)
So every time you update your will, pull out the beneficiary designation forms for every retirement account, life insurance policy, and payable-on-death bank account you own. Make sure the names on those forms match what your will assumes. After a divorce especially, changing your will without updating your beneficiary designations is one of the most expensive mistakes in estate planning.
Changes in Law or Where You Live
The 2026 Federal Exemption
The federal estate and gift tax exemption for 2026 is $15 million per individual, or $30 million for a married couple.3Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made this higher exemption permanent and indexed to inflation. Estates above the exemption still face a 40% federal tax rate on the excess. If your will includes trust provisions or tax-planning formulas designed around an older, lower exemption amount, those structures may now operate differently than intended. A formula clause that made sense at a $5 million exemption could produce bizarre results at $15 million, potentially funding a bypass trust with far more than you meant to leave outside your spouse’s control.
Moving to a Different State
A will validly executed in one state is generally recognized in another, so a move doesn’t automatically void your documents. But probate procedures, witness requirements, community property rules, and state estate taxes all vary. About a dozen states and the District of Columbia impose their own estate or inheritance taxes, often with exemption thresholds well below the federal level. If you move from a state with no estate tax to one that has one, the entire tax calculus of your plan may need rethinking. At minimum, have a local attorney review your documents after any interstate move.
Digital Assets and the People You Named Years Ago
A growing share of what people own exists only online: cryptocurrency wallets, social media accounts, digital photo libraries, domain names, online business accounts, and loyalty balances. Nearly every state has adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which gives executors legal authority to manage digital assets, but only if the will or another estate document grants that authority explicitly. Without specific language, federal privacy laws and platform terms of service can lock your executor out of your accounts.
Cryptocurrency deserves special attention because it’s functionally inaccessible without private keys or seed phrases. There’s no institution your executor can call to recover lost credentials. If you hold crypto, your will or an accompanying document should identify where those keys are stored and who can access them. Some planners recommend a separate “digital executor” with enough technical knowledge to handle crypto, since a traditional executor may not. Keep a secure, up-to-date list of accounts and access instructions outside the will itself (which becomes a public document in probate), and have the will reference where the list can be found.
The people you named also age with the document. An executor who lives out of state can trigger extra requirements in many states: posting a bond, appointing a local agent, or serving alongside a local co-executor. Guardian choices for minor children deserve the same scrutiny. The couple you picked when your kids were babies may have divorced, relocated, or aged in ways that make them less suitable. Because the guardianship designation is arguably the most consequential decision in a will, revisit it every time you do your scheduled review, even if nothing else needs changing.
Codicil or New Will?
A codicil is a written amendment to an existing will. It works for a single, contained change: swapping one executor for another, adjusting a dollar amount, or adding a small bequest. A codicil must meet the same formalities as the will itself, signed by you and witnessed by at least two disinterested people.
For anything more than a minor tweak, a new will is almost always the better choice. Multiple codicils stacked on top of an original create confusion during probate, because the executor and court have to reconcile every amendment with the original text. If you’re changing beneficiaries, altering multiple sections, or restructuring how assets are distributed, start fresh. The new will should include a clause explicitly revoking all prior wills and codicils, and you should physically destroy the old originals so no one can produce an outdated version during probate.
Update Your Other Estate Documents at the Same Time
A will review that ignores companion documents is only half the job. A financial power of attorney names someone to manage your money if you become incapacitated, and if that person is no longer appropriate, the document is just as stale as an outdated will. The same goes for a healthcare directive, sometimes called a living will or healthcare power of attorney, which controls medical decisions if you can’t speak for yourself. Every time you review your will, pull out these documents and confirm the people named in them are still the right choices. They should also be updated after any interstate move, since the forms and requirements vary by state.