Estate Planning After Divorce in Maryland: A 7-Document Checklist
The divorce decree is signed. The boxes are unpacked. And somewhere, on a piece of paper drafted three or seven or fifteen years ago, your former spouse is still your beneficiary, your healthcare agent, your trustee, or all three.
This is the part of divorce nobody warns you about. The legal end of a marriage does not, on its own, rewrite the documents that decide what happens if you become incapacitated or pass away. Some of those documents update automatically under Maryland law. Most do not. And the ones that do not are usually the ones that control the largest share of your assets.
I see this every month at Zadjura Family Law. Clients in Howard County and Anne Arundel County come in for the divorce, finalize it, and assume the estate plan now reflects their new life. Six months later, a stray retirement account or a life insurance policy reminds them that it does not. I covered this same ground recently in a recent webinar with Fresh Starts Registry called "Estate Planning After Divorce: The 'Do This First' Roadmap," where we walked through the order of operations live with real questions from divorced parents. My earlier post, After Divorce: Why Updating Your Estate Documents and Beneficiary Designations Matters, explained why this gap exists. This post is the practical follow-up: the seven documents to update, in order of importance, with the Maryland-specific rule that applies to each.
What Estate Planning Documents Should I Update After Divorce in Maryland?
After an absolute divorce in Maryland, you should update seven categories of estate planning documents: your will, your revocable trust, your durable financial power of attorney, your advance medical directive, your beneficiary designations on retirement and life insurance accounts, your payable-on-death and transfer-on-death account designations, and your guardianship nomination for minor children. Maryland law automatically revokes some of these in favor of a former spouse upon divorce, but most of them do not update on their own. Treating divorce as the moment to refresh all seven prevents your former spouse from inheriting, deciding, or controlling anything by accident.
That is the short answer. Below is the order I recommend working through them, and the Maryland rule that applies to each.
What Maryland Law Changes Automatically After Divorce, and What It Does Not
Maryland law gives divorced spouses a partial safety net, not a complete one. Under Maryland Code, Estates and Trusts § 4-105, an absolute divorce or annulment automatically revokes any provision in your will that benefits your former spouse. The law treats your ex as if they had predeceased you. The same general rule applies to revocable trusts.
What Maryland does not do is extend that revocation to non-probate assets. There is no general Maryland statute that automatically removes a former spouse as the named beneficiary on a life insurance policy, a 401(k), an IRA, a payable-on-death bank account, or a transfer-on-death investment account. Even a separation agreement incorporated into a divorce decree does not, on its own, change a beneficiary designation. The designation on file with the financial institution controls.
That is the gap. The will updates itself. The 401(k) does not. And in most divorced households, the 401(k) is worth more than the will controls.
The seven-document checklist below addresses both halves of that gap.
Seven Documents for Estate Planning After Divorce
DOCUMENT 1: Your Will
Your will is the document Maryland updates most generously after divorce, but that does not mean you should leave it alone.
Under § 4-105, the absolute divorce revokes any gift to your former spouse and any appointment of your former spouse as personal representative or trustee. The rest of the will stays in force. So if your will named your ex as the primary beneficiary and your sister as the alternate, your sister now inherits.
The problem with relying on this automatic rule is that it can produce results you did not intend. A will written ten years ago may name an alternate personal representative who has since moved out of state, an alternate beneficiary who is no longer in your life, or a guardian for minor children whose circumstances have changed. The automatic revocation only removes your former spouse. It does not refresh anything else.
The fix is straightforward. Sign a new will that reflects your post-divorce life from top to bottom. Maryland requires a will to be in writing, signed by the testator, and witnessed by two adults. No notarization is required. As part of our estate planning work, we typically prepare a new will alongside the other six documents in this checklist so the entire plan is internally consistent.
DOCUMENT 2: Your Revocable Living Trust
If you and your former spouse created a revocable living trust during the marriage, this is one of the most complex documents to update, and one of the most important.
Maryland's automatic revocation rule extends to revocable trusts in much the same way it applies to wills. Provisions in favor of a former spouse are generally treated as revoked upon absolute divorce. But trusts come in many shapes. A joint trust created together during the marriage may need to be formally dissolved or significantly amended. A separate trust you created on your own still needs the trustee, successor trustee, and beneficiary designations reviewed and updated.
The reason this matters more than the will for many divorcing couples is timing. Trust assets pass outside probate. They do not wait for a court to read a will. If a trust still names your former spouse as a successor trustee with control over assets meant for your children, that authority can take effect the moment you become incapacitated, before any update has a chance to catch up.
Trust amendments must follow the same formalities as the original document. For most Maryland revocable trusts, that means a written, signed amendment. For more substantial restructuring, a full trust restatement is often cleaner than a series of amendments stacked on top of each other.
DOCUMENT 3: Your Durable Financial Power of Attorney
If you signed a financial power of attorney during your marriage, your former spouse is almost certainly the named agent. Maryland law does revoke that appointment upon absolute divorce as a matter of statute, but most attorneys recommend signing a fresh document anyway.
The reason is practical. A bank or financial institution presented with an old power of attorney does not know about the divorce. They see a document that says your ex is your agent. The institution may honor it before they learn the marriage has ended. Even if the appointment is technically void, the time and effort of unwinding any transaction your ex initiated falls on you.
A new Maryland statutory power of attorney solves this on day one. The document must be in writing, signed in the presence of a notary public, and witnessed by two adults. The notary may serve as one of the two witnesses. Naming a sibling, an adult child, a parent, or a trusted friend in the agent role gives you the protection of the document without the embarrassment of a financial institution calling your former spouse for authorization.
DOCUMENT 4: Your Advance Medical Directive
A Maryland advance medical directive is a single document that does three jobs at once: it appoints a healthcare agent, it sets out your wishes for end-of-life care (the living will portion), and it includes a HIPAA authorization that lets healthcare providers share medical information with the people you name.
Like the financial power of attorney, this document almost certainly named your former spouse. And like the financial power of attorney, the practical risk is not what the law says in theory. It is what the emergency room sees on paper at 2 a.m.
Maryland's execution rules for an advance directive are straightforward. The document must be in writing, signed by you, and witnessed by two adults. No notarization is required. The healthcare agent named in the document cannot serve as a witness, and at least one of the two witnesses cannot stand to financially benefit from your death.
Once the new directive is signed, distribute copies. Give one to the new healthcare agent. Give one to your primary care doctor. If you are willing, register the document with the Maryland Advance Directive Registry so emergency rooms can pull it up electronically. The directive does not protect you if no one can find it.
One related document worth knowing about, even though it does not belong on this checklist for most readers: the Maryland MOLST form (Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment). MOLST is a medical order signed by a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant, and it travels with the patient across care settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, and EMS. It is required for patients being admitted to or discharged from those facilities, but it is built for serious illness or advanced frailty, not for general post-divorce planning. For most clients in their 30s, 40s, and 50s updating an estate plan after a Maryland divorce, the advance medical directive is the right tool. MOLST becomes relevant later, if and when health circumstances change.
DOCUMENT 5: Beneficiary Designations on Retirement Accounts and Life Insurance
This is the document category most often missed, and the one that creates the largest financial risk after a Maryland divorce.
Maryland does not have a general revocation-on-divorce statute that applies to non-probate beneficiary designations. The 401(k), IRA, life insurance policy, or annuity that named your former spouse as beneficiary will continue to name your former spouse as beneficiary until you change it with the financial institution that holds the account. The divorce decree, on its own, does not.
For employer-sponsored retirement plans (401(k), 403(b), pension), federal law adds another layer. ERISA requires the plan administrator to honor the beneficiary designation on file. Even if a state had a sweeping revocation statute, it would not reach an ERISA-governed plan. Maryland does not have such a sweeping statute, but the principle still matters: the only thing that changes the beneficiary on a 401(k) is a new beneficiary designation form filed with the plan administrator.
WATCH THE WEBINAR
Estate Planning After Divorce:
The 'Do This First' Roadmap
The fix is logistically simple, even if it takes a Saturday afternoon. Pull a list of every account that pays out by beneficiary designation:
401(k), 403(b), pension, and other employer retirement plans
Traditional and Roth IRAs
Life insurance policies (individual and employer-sponsored)
Annuities
Health savings accounts
Contact each plan administrator or insurance company and submit a new beneficiary designation form. Keep a copy of every confirmation. The new beneficiaries can be your children, a trust set up for their benefit, or anyone else you choose, but they will not be your former spouse unless you actively make that choice again.
If you want to walk through these document categories in real time and hear answers to live questions from other divorced parents, my workshop with Fresh Starts Registry is available as a free replay. We cover what changes automatically, what stays linked to your former spouse, and how to think about new partners and future relationships. The webinar pairs naturally with this checklist.
Watch the replay: Estate Planning After Divorce: The 'Do This First' Roadmap
DOCUMENT 6: Payable-on-Death and Transfer-on-Death Designations
Bank accounts and brokerage accounts often have a payable-on-death (POD) or transfer-on-death (TOD) designation that operates the same way as a beneficiary form on a retirement account. The named recipient inherits the account immediately upon your death, outside probate, regardless of what your will says.
Maryland's automatic revocation rule does not reach these designations either. If you and your former spouse opened a joint checking account with a POD beneficiary listed during the marriage, that beneficiary remains in place until the account is closed, retitled, or updated.
This is also the right moment to look at jointly titled accounts. An account held as joint tenants with right of survivorship passes automatically to the surviving owner. If your name and your former spouse's name are still both on the deed, the title, or the account, that survivorship right needs to be addressed, either by retitling the account into your name alone or by following whatever the divorce decree requires.
A simple rule of thumb: if you can call a bank and ask "who gets this account if something happens to me," and the answer is your former spouse, that account needs an update.
DOCUMENT 7: Guardianship Nomination for Minor Children
This document is rarely the first one a divorced parent thinks of, and it is one of the most emotionally important.
In Maryland, if you pass away, your former spouse will almost certainly become the sole legal custodian of any minor children you share. A guardianship nomination in your will does not override that. Both parents are presumed to have an equal right to custody, and the surviving parent receives custody as a matter of course.
What a guardianship nomination does do is plan for the scenario where both parents are gone or otherwise unable to serve. It tells the court who you want raising your children if your former spouse cannot. Without that nomination, the court chooses on its own, weighing relatives, in-laws, and other potential caregivers without your input.
This nomination should be reviewed after every divorce, especially if your previous nomination named your former spouse's family member, sibling, or close friend. Those nominations may not reflect your current relationships, and they may not reflect what you would now consider best for your children.
Related Reading
If you want a deeper look at why these updates matter from a relationship and emotional standpoint, my earlier post, After Divorce: Why Updating Your Estate Documents and Beneficiary Designations Matters, covers the reasons divorced clients across Maryland make this part of their post-divorce reset. This post is the seven-document execution checklist. That post is the why behind it.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes, but only partially. Maryland Code, Estates and Trusts § 4-105 automatically revokes any provision in your will that benefits your former spouse, treating them as if they had predeceased you. The rest of the will remains in force. This means your alternate beneficiary inherits, your alternate personal representative serves, and so on. While this rule provides a useful safety net, most attorneys recommend signing a new will after divorce to ensure the alternates and other provisions still reflect your current life.
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Maryland does not have a general statute that automatically revokes beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance policies, or other non-probate assets upon divorce. If your former spouse is the named beneficiary on file with the plan administrator or insurance company, they will inherit unless you submit a new beneficiary designation form. For employer-sponsored retirement plans, federal ERISA law also requires the plan to honor the beneficiary on file. Updating these designations directly with each financial institution is the only reliable way to remove a former spouse.
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There is no statutory deadline, but the practical answer is as soon as possible. Most of the largest financial risks (retirement accounts, life insurance, POD and TOD designations) do not update on their own at any point. Until you change them, your former spouse remains the beneficiary. I generally recommend that clients in Howard County and Anne Arundel County book the estate plan review within 30 to 60 days of the final divorce decree, while the divorce paperwork is still organized and the relevant facts are fresh.
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Generally, no. A Maryland divorce decree, even one that incorporates a separation agreement promising to update beneficiaries, does not on its own change a beneficiary designation on file with the insurance company. The only reliable way to change a designation is to submit a new beneficiary form to the financial institution that holds the policy or account.
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Some Maryland divorce decrees and separation agreements require the obligor spouse to maintain life insurance with the former spouse or children as beneficiary, typically to secure alimony or child support. If your decree includes such a provision, your post-divorce estate plan needs to comply with it. The estate plan update is not about removing your former spouse from every document, it is about making sure each designation matches your current intentions and your court-ordered obligations.
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Yes, especially if you have not done a top-to-bottom review since the decree. The most common pattern I see in Howard and Anne Arundel County practice is that someone updated one or two documents in the year after the divorce (usually the will and the financial power of attorney), but never circled back to the retirement accounts, life insurance, or POD designations. A single hour with an attorney and a list of accounts is usually enough to identify and close the remaining gaps.
Schedule a Consultation
Updating an estate plan after a Maryland divorce is rarely complicated on a per-document basis. The challenge is making sure no document is missed. A coordinated review, working through all seven categories together, is the most efficient way to confirm nothing in your old life is still controlling something in your new one.
If you would like to think through this in a less formal setting first, you can watch the full webinar replay of the workshop I led with Fresh Starts Registry, where we walked through this same roadmap in real time. When you are ready for the personalized version, Maryland family law attorney Jessica Zadjura works with divorced clients across Howard and Anne Arundel Counties, with offices in Columbia and Annapolis, to update estate plans on a flat-fee basis after divorce.
Schedule a consultation to walk through your seven-document checklist.
Jessica Zadjura is a Maryland family law attorney, mediator, and parent coordinator with 15 years of experience. She is the founder of Zadjura Family Law LLC, serving clients across Howard and Anne Arundel Counties.
