A will is only as good as its last review

A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 32 percent of U.S. adults have a will. The 68 percent without one leave any asset that has no beneficiary designation to state law. Yet a signed will is not the same as a current one. The fight over actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner's estate shows why.

Warner died unexpectedly in July 2025. His widow sued his financial advisor, saying the advisor never finalized drafted changes to Warner's estate plan. She separately sued Warner's mother, the trustee of the family trust, arguing that Warner's daughter should receive trust assets. Financial Planning reports that some estate-related claims were settled this month.

The case arrives during National Make a Will Month, the annual August push to get people to write down their wishes. Estate plans do not need to be rewritten every year, but they need a second look after every major life event, said Stephen Dissette, a registered investment advisor representative of Horter Investment Management in Trail Creek, Indiana. "You have power from the grave where you can determine who gets what and when they get it," Dissette said. "If you leave it really vague, you're going to have family members fighting, and don't be surprised if lawsuits get brought in."

Dissette cites a teacher who named her sister beneficiary of her 403(b), then married and started a family without updating the form. When she died, the sister received the funds instead of the husband. Legal fees can eat a large share of an inheritance in the fights that follow, he said, and relatives can surface to claim a share. "They smell blood in the water, and here come the sharks." August gives advisors a convenient excuse to run clients through a document review.

Beneficiary designations come first. The teacher's 403(b) is the example: the form on file, not the will, decides where the money goes. Marriage, divorce, birth, death in the family: any one of those is reason enough to reprint the forms and ask the client to check the names.

The will and trust documents come next. A document written before a marriage, a birth, or a divorce can say things the client no longer wants said. The court will enforce the old terms until a new document replaces them.

Then confirm signed documents actually exist. The lawsuit against Warner's advisor alleges the drafted updates were never finalized. A revision nobody signed is no revision at all. A client who says "I need to fix that" needs a follow-up appointment, not a note in a file.

Fiduciaries deserve the same scrutiny as beneficiaries. A trustee or executor who looked right when the document was signed may look wrong after a falling out, a divorce, or money getting more complicated. Warner's dispute turned on the actions of the trustee, his mother, and her decisions are now being litigated.

Incapacity documents belong in the same review, because plans are not only about death. The older the client, the greater the odds that cognitive decline arrives before the paperwork changes. Powers of attorney and health care directives should be signed while the client can still understand them. That is the other face of Dissette's "power from the grave": the documents decide who speaks for a client who cannot.

Finally, confirm what happens with no plan at all. Clients without a will or trust leave the state to decide what happens in probate, a process that can take months while a court divides assets. The 32 percent figure is a reminder of how many families end up on that timeline.

August gives advisors a reason to make these calls, but the review works any month. Ask the client one question: "When was your will last signed?" If the answer does not include a specific date and a list of life events since, there is work to do.