The Complete Estate Planning Checklist

A complete estate plan is six documents plus the follow-through that makes them work. This checklist covers all of it — the decisions each document asks of you, the signing formalities, and the maintenance steps that most plans skip and later regret. Work through it top to bottom and you’ll be more prepared than the vast majority of American households.

The six documents

1. Last will and testament

• Choose who inherits — including backups if your first choices don’t survive you
• Name your personal representative (executor) and at least one successor
• Parents: nominate guardians for minor children, plus a backup
• Include a residuary clause — the “everything else” line that prevents partial intestacy
• Decide on specific gifts (heirlooms, sums to people or charities)

2. Revocable living trust

• Decide whether a trust should do your plan’s heavy lifting — real estate, privacy, incapacity planning, and control over timing are the usual reasons
• Name successor trustees (often the same people as your executors)
• Set distribution terms — outright, or staged for young beneficiaries
• Fund it: retitle your home and major accounts into the trust. An unfunded trust is a binder, not a plan

3. General durable power of attorney

• Choose a financial agent and a successor — people you’d trust with your checkbook, because that’s literally the job
• Decide effective-immediately vs. springing-on-incapacity
• Consider specific powers: real estate, gifts, business interests, digital assets

4. Healthcare power of attorney

• Choose a medical agent who can advocate under pressure, plus a successor
• Avoid must-agree co-agents — bedside deadlock defeats the purpose
• Talk to your agent. The document authorizes; the conversation prepares

5. Living will / advance directive

• Record end-of-life treatment wishes: life support, artificial nutrition and hydration, pain management
• State organ donation preferences
• Note funeral and disposition wishes — and tell someone, since these are often needed before documents are read

6. HIPAA authorization

• List everyone who should be able to receive your medical information — typically broader than your decision-makers

Sign everything correctly

• Wills need two adult witnesses in every state — generally people who don’t inherit
• Add the self-proving affidavit (notarized) where your state recognizes it — it spares your family a witness hunt at probate
• Louisiana signs differently (notarial testament — notary plus two witnesses together); healthcare documents in some states have special witness eligibility rules. Follow your state’s instructions exactly

Coordinate the assets that bypass your will

Beneficiary designations override wills. This section catches more families than any other:

• Review beneficiaries on life insurance, 401(k)s, IRAs, and pensions — primary and contingent
• Remove ex-spouses; add successors; make designations match the plan
• Check titling on real estate and joint accounts (survivorship rights?)
• Consider payable-on-death designations on bank accounts

Make the plan findable

• Store signed originals somewhere safe and accessible — a fireproof home box beats a safe-deposit box your executor can’t open
• Tell your executor and agents where documents are; give copies to healthcare agents
• Leave a digital-assets note: where accounts live and how your executor gains access (password manager emergency access is the clean solution)
• Write down the practical layer: advisors’ names, account list, insurance policies, debts

Cover your household, not just yourself

• Spouses and partners each need their own complete set — mirror wills with coordinated guardians and survival clauses
• Review the “second death” layer together: where everything goes after you’ve both passed

Review on a schedule

• Recheck the whole plan after every major life event: marriage, divorce, birth, death of a named person, a move to a new state, a home purchase, a business change
• No events? Skim it every 2–3 years anyway — named people move, relationships change, laws change
• Moving states matters: execution rules, community property, and state death taxes all vary by state

Where to start

The checklist looks long because it’s complete — but the documents themselves are a guided afternoon, not a project. Plan Your After walks you through every decision above, builds all six documents with your state’s signing requirements included, and flags what’s incomplete before you finalize. Free for 10 days, then $149, with a year of unlimited updates for the life changes this checklist told you to expect.