Updating your estate plan after divorce or loss

Your divorce decree is final. Your estate plan still thinks you're married. Some of that fixes itself automatically. Most of it doesn't.

What Arizona revokes automatically after divorce

A.R.S. § 14-2804 revokes, upon divorce, any disposition or appointment of property to the former spouse in a will, a revocable trust, a beneficiary designation, a revocable transfer-on-death deed, or a pay-on-death account. Fiduciary appointments of the former spouse (as executor, trustee, or agent under a power of attorney) are also revoked.

This is wide. In most cases, the statute treats the former spouse as if they had died the moment the divorce became final, and the instrument passes as if that were true. A contingent beneficiary (often a child or alternate trustee) steps into the role.

The statute applies to a divorce, legal separation, or annulment. It doesn't apply during the time between filing for divorce and the decree being entered, which can be months or years in Arizona. If you're in the middle of a divorce and want a document changed now, sign a new one.

What Arizona doesn't revoke (and why it matters)

ERISA plans. Federal law controls 401(k)s, pension plans, and similar retirement accounts governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff (532 U.S. 141) that federal ERISA law preempts state revocation statutes for ERISA-governed plans. The beneficiary designation form wins. If your ex is still listed on a 401(k), the 401(k) pays out to your ex.

Joint tenancy with right of survivorship. If you and your former spouse own property as joint tenants and the title hasn't been changed, the survivor still inherits the property automatically at the other's death. A divorce decree can order a transfer, but the decree doesn't retitle the property. A new deed does.

Life insurance policies where the ex-spouse is listed as the owner. An ex-spouse who owns a policy on your life can continue paying premiums and will receive the proceeds at death. Changing the owner requires cooperation from the ex, which can be part of the divorce agreement but often isn't.

Beneficiary designations on non-ERISA plans that name the ex-spouse specifically. A.R.S. § 14-2804 should revoke these, but insurance companies and financial institutions don't always know about the statute or apply it correctly. Send new beneficiary designation forms to every account. Don't rely on the statutory backstop.

Replace your powers of attorney

Your pre-divorce powers of attorney name your former spouse as your agent for financial and healthcare decisions. Even though A.R.S. § 14-2804 revokes the appointment, you have no functional powers of attorney afterward. That gap is real. If you're hospitalized and no agent is designated, nobody has legal authority to act until a court-appointed conservator steps in.

Sign new powers of attorney within weeks of the divorce, not months. Name someone willing and capable of acting under pressure. Polite at Thanksgiving isn't the qualification.

Revoke and replace your will or trust

A post-divorce will or trust should not be a red-lined version of the old one. Start fresh. New document, new review of guardianship nominations (if you have minor children), new thinking about trustees and alternates, new witnesses, new signatures.

Revoke the old document expressly in the new one. If the old will is sitting in a drawer or on file with the attorney who drafted it, physical destruction plus an express revocation clause in the new document prevents accidental probate of the wrong document.

The beneficiary audit

After divorce, every beneficiary designation gets reviewed, whether A.R.S. § 14-2804 covers it or not.

Life insurance: policy owner and beneficiary both.

Retirement accounts: IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, pension plans, deferred comp. Each plan has a separate form. Each form needs a signed change request on file with the plan administrator.

Bank accounts and brokerage accounts with payable-on-death designations.

Health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts, and any other account that passes outside of your will.

Do this within the first thirty days after the decree is final. Put a calendar reminder for twelve months later to confirm nothing was missed.

After a death, not a divorce

Widowhood triggers different planning. Arizona doesn't automatically revoke a surviving spouse's will, trust, or beneficiary designations when the spouse dies. The documents you and your late spouse signed likely name each other as primary beneficiary, trustee, and agent. That means your documents now point first to someone who is no longer here, and you rely entirely on the contingent appointments to work.

Review every document within six months of the death. Update beneficiary designations to name the contingent beneficiary as primary. Replace powers of attorney naming the deceased spouse. Consider whether the trust structure that made sense for a married couple still makes sense for one person.

Tax-wise, a surviving spouse has a narrow window (nine months in most cases) to make portability elections for the federal estate tax exemption (IRC § 2010(c)(5)(A)). If the estate was significant, missing this election can cost your children millions of dollars in estate tax later. Talk to counsel before the six-month mark, not after.

Timing

Divorce. Sign new documents before the decree is final if possible, and certainly within thirty days after. There is no reason to wait.

Death of a spouse. Handle the emotional aftermath first, but complete the document review within six months. Certain tax elections are time-sensitive and can't be extended.

Next steps

If you've recently divorced or lost a spouse and haven't updated your estate plan, schedule a free 30-minute consultation. We review what Arizona revoked automatically, identify what you still need to fix yourself, and quote a flat fee for the documents that make sense for your new situation. You'll know the exact number before you commit.