National Estate Planning Awareness Week: A Year-End Review Checklist for California Families

Most estate plans are not wrong. They are simply out of date, and the gap between the two is where families run into trouble.

A trust signed in 2015 was accurate in 2015. Since then a house may have been refinanced, a retirement account rolled over, a marriage ended, a child turned 18, or the person named as successor trustee moved across the country and had three children of their own. None of that changes the document. All of it changes whether the document still does what it was written to do.

National Estate Planning Awareness Week, which the House of Representatives adopted in 2008 through House Resolution 1499 and which falls during the third full week of October each year, is a convenient annual prompt. In 2026 it runs October 19 to 25. What follows is the review we would suggest for a California family, in the order that tends to catch the most.

One. Is the trust actually funded

This is the item that turns up most often, and it is the one with the largest consequences. A revocable living trust only controls the assets that have been transferred into it. A trust document sitting in a binder while the house deed still reads in an individual name has not accomplished what the family thinks it accomplished. The house is headed for probate regardless of what the trust says.

The five-minute self-check is straightforward. Take the list of your significant assets and, for each one, ask how title reads today.

• Real property. Pull the most recent recorded deed for each parcel, including any out-of-state property. Refinancing is a common way a home quietly returns to individual ownership.
• Bank and credit union accounts. Confirm whether each account is held in the name of the trust.
• Non-retirement investment accounts. These are often the ones that were opened after the trust was signed and never retitled.
• Business interests. An LLC membership interest or corporate stock generally has to be assigned deliberately.
• Newly acquired assets. Anything bought since the last review deserves a specific look.

Retirement accounts are the exception. Those generally are not transferred into a trust during your lifetime, and they pass by beneficiary designation instead, which is the next item.

Two. Do the beneficiary designations still match

Retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, and accounts with payable on death or transfer on death instructions pass by the form on file with the institution. That form controls regardless of what your will or trust says.

This is how an ex-spouse inherits a 401(k) years after a divorce, and how a child who has since passed away remains the named beneficiary while a grandchild receives nothing. Neither outcome reflects what the family intended. Both are common.

Request a current beneficiary confirmation from each institution rather than relying on memory. Check that both primary and contingent beneficiaries are named, since a missing contingent designation frequently sends an account into probate. If a trust is named as beneficiary, confirm it is named correctly and that this is still the intended structure, because designating a trust as beneficiary of a retirement account carries tax consequences worth reviewing with counsel.

Three. Can the people you named still serve

Every estate plan names people. A successor trustee. An executor. An agent under a financial power of attorney. An agent for health care decisions. A guardian for minor children.

Those choices were made at a particular moment, and people’s circumstances change. Run through each name and ask three questions. Is this person still willing? Are they still able, in terms of health, location, and capacity? Are they still the right choice given how the family and the estate have changed?

Also confirm that successors are named at each position. A plan with a single named trustee and no alternate is one health event away from a court proceeding. And check that whoever you have named actually knows they were named, knows where the documents are, and knows who to call. A person who learns of the appointment at the worst possible moment is at a serious disadvantage.

Four. What changed this year

Certain life events reliably require a plan update. If any of these occurred, the review is not optional.

• A marriage or a divorce, either your own or that of a child who is a beneficiary.
• A death in the family, particularly of anyone named in your documents.
• The purchase or sale of real property, in California or elsewhere.
• A new business interest, or the sale of one.
• A move into or out of California, which can change how property is characterized and how documents are treated.
• A child turning 18, at which point a parent no longer has automatic authority over medical or financial matters.
• A significant change in health for anyone in the family.
• A meaningful change in the size or composition of the estate.

Divorce deserves particular attention, because the update is rarely finished when the judgment is entered. Beneficiary Designations , trustee appointments, powers of attorney, and health care directives frequently still name a former spouse long after the marriage has ended.

Year-end gifting

For families who make annual gifts, the calendar year matters. For 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per donee. The federal basic exclusion amount for estates of decedents dying in 2026 is $15,000,000.

Two notes. First, gifting is only sensible in the context of the broader plan, since giving away an appreciated asset during life forfeits the step-up in basis that the same asset would receive at death, which for a California couple with community property can be a substantial difference. Second, the IRS has not yet released inflation-adjusted estate and gift figures for 2027. Those have historically been published in the fall, and any planning that depends on them should wait for the actual numbers.

What a review usually looks like

For most families this is not a rebuild. A large share of reviews conclude with the documents unchanged and a short list of administrative items, most often a deed to record, a beneficiary form to update, or a successor to add. That is a good outcome, and it is worth the hour. Where a review does produce changes, they are usually smaller than people fear. Amending a revocable trust, updating a power of attorney, or adding a successor is ordinary work. The expensive scenarios are the ones where nobody looked for a decade, and a family discovers the gap at the point when it can no longer be fixed.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• H.Res. 1499, National Estate Planning Awareness Week: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-110hres1499eh/html/BILLS-110hres1499eh.htm
• NAEPC, awareness campaign dates: https://www.naepc.org/events/awareness_campaigns
• IRS, what is new for estate and gift tax: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/whats-new-estate-and-gift-tax
• IRS IR-2025-103, 2026 inflation adjustments: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-releases-tax-inflation-adjustments-for-tax-year-2026-including-amendments-from-the-one-big-beautiful-bill

Goodman Estate Law

Brett J. Goodman is the founder and lead attorney at Goodman Estate Law, based in Laguna Hills, CA. The firm specializes in Estate Planning, Trust Administration, and Probate, helping individuals and families create or update wills and trusts. With a focus on personalized, compassionate, and professional guidance, Goodman Estate Law ensures clients’ assets and futures are protected during every stage of estate planning.