A will is not a document you sign once and file away for good. It reflects the people in your life, the property you own, and the person you trusted to handle things, all as of the day you signed it. Lives change faster than paperwork.
Nothing prompts a review. No renewal notice arrives, no expiration date sits on the signature page, and the document does not object when it stops matching your life. That silence is why so many Texas wills are quietly out of date by the time anyone reads them.
How Often Should You Update Your Will?
Read your will every three to five years even when nothing dramatic has happened. Most reviews end with no changes, which is a fine outcome. The more useful trigger is an event rather than a date, and seven of them come up repeatedly.
Seven Moments Worth a Second Look
1. You marry or remarry. Texas does not rewrite your will when you marry. A document naming children from an earlier marriage stays exactly as written, and a new spouse does not automatically step into it. Homestead and allowance protections exist for a surviving spouse, but those are not the same as inheriting what you intended.
2. A divorce becomes final. Texas helps here. The will is read as though your former spouse died before you, cancelling gifts to them and their appointment as executor. What surprises people is the reach of that rule: it also removes your former spouse’s relatives who are not related to you. If you raised stepchildren and still want to provide for them, the statute cuts them out alongside their parent. Our post on what to revisit after a Texas divorce covers the surrounding documents.
3. A child or grandchild arrives. Texas has a statute protecting a child born or adopted after a will is signed, but it produces a default share rather than your intentions, and it can pull from what you left to everyone else. Naming the child yourself is cleaner.
4. Someone you named has died or is no longer the right choice. Executors age, move, and fall out of touch. Beneficiaries sometimes die first. A will with no backup named for either role invites the exact court involvement you were trying to prevent.
5. You moved to Texas. A will properly signed in another state is generally still valid here, but validity is a low bar. Texas allows independent administration, which keeps an estate largely out of court supervision, and an out-of-state document often lacks the language that unlocks it. That omission can add cost and months.
6. What you own has changed. If your will leaves a specific house, car, or account to a particular person and you no longer own it, that gift can simply evaporate while the rest of the document proceeds. Selling a property, opening new accounts, or buying real estate in another state all deserve a second look.
7. A beneficiary’s circumstances shifted. An inheritance can disqualify someone from needs-based benefits, land in the middle of their divorce, or reach a creditor. A direct gift that made sense a decade ago may need a different structure now.
What the Statutes Will Not Do for You
Texas fills a few gaps automatically, but the fixes are blunt. They apply a general rule to particular circumstances, and the result is whatever the legislature decided most people would have wanted.
Those rules also stop at the edge of your will. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts pass by beneficiary form, and some are governed by federal rules that state law does not touch. Reviewing the will without reviewing the designations leaves half the job undone.
One Thing Not to Do
Do not write on the signed document. Crossing out a name, adding a line in the margin, or clipping a note to the front does not change anything reliably, and it hands a probate court an ambiguity to sort out. Changes belong in a properly executed amendment or a new will.
Key Takeaways
- Review every three to five years, and after any major life event
- Marriage does not update a Texas will, though divorce does remove a former spouse by operation of law
- That same divorce rule also removes your former spouse’s relatives, including stepchildren you may want to keep
- A will from another state can be valid here and still cost your estate time and money
- Beneficiary designations sit outside the will and need their own review
- Handwritten changes on a signed will create problems rather than solving them
Bringing the Document Back in Line With Your Life
Most of the problems above are cheap to fix while you are alive and expensive to sort out afterward. A review is a short conversation, not a rebuild.
At Bromlow Law, PLLC, our estate planning practice includes reviewing wills drafted elsewhere or years ago and identifying what no longer fits. If you cannot recall the last time you read yours, that is your answer. An attorney can go through the document with you and explain what your circumstances call for. Book your discovery call to learn more.
References: Texas Estates Code, Dissolution of Marriage, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.123.htm | Texas Estates Code, Construction and Interpretation of Wills, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.255.htm
