Does Divorce Update Your Estate Plan Automatically in Georgia?
Georgia law does some of this work, but only part of it. Under O.C.G.A. § 53-4-49, any part of your will that names your ex-spouse is automatically canceled once your divorce is final. That covers a gift to your ex, and it covers naming your ex as executor. The law treats your ex as if they died before you, but only for that one document.
That sounds like it solves the problem. It solves less than half of it. This automatic fix only reaches your will. It does nothing for a trust. It does nothing for your power of attorney or your healthcare directive. And it doesn’t touch a beneficiary form on a life insurance policy or a retirement account.
This is one piece of the bigger picture covered in Estate Planning for Divorced Parents Who Are Co-Parenting in Georgia. That page covers the full checklist. This page covers the part that checklist doesn’t price out: what it actually costs to fix what Georgia law leaves untouched.
Why the Automatic Fix Doesn’t Reach Your Trust
A trust is a separate legal paper from a will, and Georgia’s automatic-fix law was written to cover wills only. If your ex-spouse is named as a beneficiary, a trustee, or a backup trustee in your trust, that stays true until you change it. No court removes them for you. Your divorce decree doesn’t either.
The same gap shows up in a few other places:
- Life insurance and retirement accounts. Whoever is listed on the beneficiary form gets the money. It doesn’t matter what your will or trust says.
- Financial power of attorney. Your ex can still make money decisions for you if you can’t make them yourself, unless you sign a new one.
- Healthcare directive. Your ex can still make medical decisions for you, for the same reason.
The Hive Law builds trust-based plans, which is exactly why this gap matters here. A trust-based plan needs a real update to actually reflect a divorce. The decree alone isn’t enough.
What It Costs to Update a Trust You Already Have
If you already have a trust-based plan, and it just needs to be brought current, The Hive Law’s flat fee is $1,050. This is the same trust package review Melissa Breyer runs for any plan that’s gone stale. It isn’t a special divorce-only service.
The review covers:
- Reading every document in your plan. Your trust, your pour-over will, your power of attorney, and your healthcare directive.
- Checking who’s still named. Melissa checks all four documents. She confirms whether your ex-spouse is still listed anywhere in them.
- A phone call with Melissa. To confirm what your divorce actually changed. Custody, property, and who you trust now can all shift at the same time.
- The actual updates. Melissa makes whatever changes are needed and sends the documents back to you before anything is final.
It’s a flat fee. No hourly billing, and no surprise invoice if the review turns up more to fix than expected. See the full breakdown on the Trust Package Review page.
What It Costs If You Only Have a Will, or Nothing at All
A review only works if there’s a trust-based plan to review. If you only have a will, or never finished a plan at all, there’s nothing for a review to update. You’d be starting from the foundation instead.
Building a full trust-based plan at The Hive Law starts at $3,500. That covers a revocable living trust, a pour-over will, and a power of attorney. It also covers a healthcare directive and a guardian nomination for any minor children. Everything is built around your life after the divorce, not before it.
A will alone doesn’t avoid Georgia probate, and O.C.G.A. § 53-4-49’s automatic fix only reaches a will in the first place. If you’re rebuilding after a divorce, that’s usually the right moment to move to a trust instead of replacing one will with another. See the full cost breakdown for a Georgia family with minor children for how the tiers work.
Which One You Actually Need
The honest answer usually comes down to one question. Do you already have a trust that’s set up, or not?
- You have a trust, and it just needs updating. The $1,050 review is the right call. Melissa reads what you have and fixes what your divorce changed.
- You have a will, but no trust. A review has nothing to work with. Building a plan starting at $3,500 is the real starting point.
- You have a trust, but it was never funded, or it’s from a different state. Melissa will tell you directly if a review isn’t enough. She won’t patch something that really needs to be replaced.
If your divorce also means naming a new guardian for your kids, see what it costs when no guardian is named at all. And if remarriage is part of the picture, the numbers change again for a blended family.
You don’t have to figure this out yourself. A quick conversation is usually enough to sort out which one applies to you.
What Other Georgia Attorneys Charge for the Same Update
Other Georgia estate planning attorneys typically bill by the hour for this kind of work. Reviewing and updating an existing plan generally runs $600 to $2,000.
Building a brand-new plan from scratch elsewhere generally runs $2,000 to $5,000 or more. The Hive Law charges one flat fee either way, so the total cost is known before Melissa opens a single document.
What Waiting Actually Costs You
There’s no Georgia law forcing you to update your plan by a certain date after a divorce. That’s exactly what makes this easy to put off. Nothing forces the issue until it’s already too late to matter.
Until you make the change, your ex-spouse can still hold your power of attorney and your healthcare directive. If something happens to you before those two documents change, your ex could still be the one making decisions for you. That’s true even years after the divorce is final, for as long as those documents go unchanged.
Getting this handled doesn’t have to be complicated. Your first call is free, about 15 minutes, and happens by phone with Shawn. If you move forward, your next step is the Design Meeting with Melissa, which is credited toward your plan.
