What should be the focus? You can start with locating all your documents.

Next, review all the gifts. Do you still have a relationship with everyone you named? If you made a gift of a specific asset, do you still own it? Do monetary gifts need to be increased to keep up with inflation? A gift intended to cover four years’ college tuition may now only cover a year or two.

Are the ages for distribution to children or grandchildren still appropriate? Will a child be prepared and mature enough to handle a substantial gift at age 18, or 21 or even 25? You may have new concerns about protecting a child from a failed marriage or creditor issues. Or maybe you now want to skip over children and leave to your grandchildren instead.

Naming the right Trustees is important. Are the Trustees older than you and are they still good candidates? If you named children as Co-Trustees, do they get along? If you named children in birth order because you did not want to hurt feelings, is the eldest the best suited? Or maybe you face the common situation of not having anybody to name. You might consider interviewing a few licensed professional fiduciaries as an option.

If you are a married couple, does your Trust require division into separate subtrusts when one of you dies? This was the gold standard of estate planning to protect against estate tax when the estate tax exemption was much lower. In the year 2000, the estate tax exemption amount was $650,000. Today it is $15,000,000. Division into separate subtrusts is now less about estate tax planning than personal choice. Is such required division still right for you? If so, there may be options to add flexibility and to protect against capital gains tax consequences.

Finally, there should be an up-to-date schedule of Trust assets (often referred to as “Schedule A”) or at the very least a broad assignment of assets to the Trust. The schedule of assets can be used to avoid probate of an asset that never made it into the Trust if it is listed on the schedule.

You can put it all back in the drawer until next year, but if something needs to be updated, make your estate plan a priority on your “to do” list for 2026.