Wills and Estate Planning: Recent Legal Developments
TLDR: Estate planning laws have shifted enough in the past couple of years that a plan drafted even five years ago might not hold up the way you think it will. Digital assets, changing tax thresholds, and new rules around remote witnessing are the biggest changes worth knowing about.
Why Old Estate Plans Are Falling Behind
A lot of people draft a will once, tuck it in a drawer, and assume it’s done. That used to be a safer bet. Laws around estates don’t move fast, but they do move, and the last few years have brought real changes that catch people off guard.
Take digital assets. Ten years ago, nobody was writing clauses about who inherits a cryptocurrency wallet or a social media account. Now it’s common enough that several states have passed specific statutes addressing it. If your will was written before your state adopted its version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, there’s a real chance your executor won’t have clear legal authority to access your online accounts, even with a password list taped inside your desk drawer.
Digital Asset Clauses Are No Longer Optional
Most modern wills now include a section granting the executor explicit authority over digital property. Without it, some platforms will refuse access outright, citing federal privacy law, regardless of what the deceased’s family wants. A client we’ll call Maria found this out when her father passed and she couldn’t get into his email to notify contacts or close out subscriptions, because his will, written in 2014, said nothing about digital access. It took months and a court order to sort out.
Remote Witnessing Rules Have Changed State by State
During the pandemic, many states temporarily allowed wills to be witnessed over video call. Some made that permanent. Others let the rule expire and went back to requiring in-person witnesses. This matters if you signed a will remotely during 2020 or 2021 and haven’t checked whether your state still recognizes it as valid.
If you’re not sure which category your state falls into, it’s worth a quick call to a local estate attorney rather than guessing. A will that isn’t properly witnessed under current law can be challenged in probate, and that’s exactly the kind of delay and expense a will is supposed to prevent.
Estate Tax Thresholds Keep Shifting
The federal estate tax exemption has been adjusted several times in recent years, and it’s scheduled to drop significantly at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts. Right now the exemption sits well into the millions per person, but that number is set to roughly cut in half. For families with real estate, business ownership, or investment portfolios that push them close to that line, this isn’t a distant concern. It’s a planning window that’s closing.
Trusts Are Becoming More Common for Mid-Sized Estates
People used to assume trusts were only for the wealthy. That’s changed. With state-level estate taxes kicking in at much lower thresholds than the federal one in places like Oregon and Massachusetts, more middle-class families are setting up revocable living trusts just to avoid probate delays and reduce what their heirs owe.
Guardianship Designations Need a Second Look
If your will names a guardian for minor children, and that will is more than a few years old, check it again. Family situations change. The sibling you named as guardian in 2018 might have moved across the country, gone through a divorce, or simply isn’t the right fit anymore. Courts generally honor the will’s designation, but only if it still reflects a workable arrangement.
Updating Beneficiary Designations Separately From Your Will
One thing people consistently miss: your will doesn’t control everything. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and payable-on-death bank accounts pass according to their own beneficiary designations, not your will. If you got divorced and never updated your 401k beneficiary, your ex could still legally inherit it, no matter what your will says.
What to Actually Do About This
None of this means you need to redo your entire estate plan from scratch. Start by pulling out your current will and checking the date. If it was signed before 2020, or if your family or financial situation has changed since then, a review makes sense. Bring it to an attorney who can walk through the specific gaps, whether that’s digital access language, trust planning, or outdated beneficiary forms.
An estate plan isn’t something you set once. It’s something you check on the way you’d check smoke detector batteries, not constantly, but often enough that it still works when it matters.
