Estate planning checklist by life stage: what to do in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond
Estate planning is not one decision you make once and then forget about for thirty years. It is a sequence of decisions, and each decade of your life puts a different set of those decisions in front of you. The plan that serves a 26-year-old who just signed an apartment lease is not the plan that serves a 58-year-old who is two years from retirement, and neither of those is the plan that serves an 82-year-old who is updating her estate after her husband passed.
Let me be very clear with you: the people who get this right are the people who treat estate planning as a moving target rather than a finish line. They build the right plan for the decade they are in, and then they update it when life moves them into the next one.
This page walks through what belongs on your estate planning checklist at each major life stage, what triggers an update, and where North Carolina law and the federal tax rules in effect for 2026 actually apply to you. If you would rather have a conversation than work through this on your own, you can reach our office at 919-647-9599.
What every adult needs and what changes with age
Every adult over the age of 18 in North Carolina needs four foundational documents: a will, a financial power of attorney, a health care power of attorney, and a HIPAA authorization. What changes with age is everything else. Beneficiary designations, guardian nominations, trusts, retirement account coordination, long-term care planning, and federal estate tax exposure all enter the picture at different stages, and they enter in a predictable order.
Estate planning checklist essentials by decade (United States, North Carolina specific)
In your 20s: a will, a durable financial power of attorney, a health care power of attorney, a HIPAA authorization, and beneficiary designations on any retirement accounts, bank accounts, and life insurance policies you own. In your 30s: add guardian nominations for minor children, term life insurance to protect dependents, and a 529 plan or other education savings vehicle if applicable. In your 40s: review and update beneficiary designations after major life events, consider a revocable living trust if you own real property in more than one state or want to avoid probate, and confirm your business succession plan if you own a business. In your 50s: coordinate retirement account beneficiaries with your estate plan, evaluate Roth conversion strategies, and review the SECURE Act 10-year rule's impact on your beneficiaries. In your 60s: address federal estate tax exposure if your estate exceeds the $15 million per-person federal exemption for 2026, evaluate gifting strategies, and confirm long-term care funding. In your 70s: review required minimum distribution timing (currently age 73 under SECURE 2.0), update advance directives, and address potential incapacity planning. In your 80s and beyond: simplify the estate, confirm fiduciaries are still able and willing to serve, and review charitable giving strategies.
In your 20s: build the foundation
Most people in their 20s do not think they need an estate plan, and quite candidly, that is the most common mistake I see. The moment you turn 18 in North Carolina, you become a legal adult under NCGS § 48A-2. Your parents lose the automatic ability to access your medical records, talk to your doctor, or handle your finances on your behalf. If you are hospitalized after a car accident at 22 and you have not signed the right paperwork, the people who love you may have to ask a court for permission to help you. That is not a hypothetical. It happens every week somewhere in this state.
What every 20-something in North Carolina needs
Required documents for young adults in North Carolina
Every adult over 18 in North Carolina should have: (1) A simple will identifying who inherits personal property and who serves as executor. (2) A durable financial power of attorney executed under NCGS Chapter 32C, naming an agent to handle financial matters during incapacity. (3) A health care power of attorney under NCGS Chapter 32A, Article 3, naming a health care agent. (4) An advance directive (living will) under NCGS Chapter 90, Article 23, addressing life-prolonging measures. (5) A HIPAA authorization complying with 45 CFR § 164.508, allowing named individuals to receive medical information. (6) Updated beneficiary designations on any retirement accounts, bank accounts, and life insurance policies.
I want to strongly encourage you to think about this in practical terms. A 24-year-old who has $4,000 in a checking account, a 401(k) match worth maybe $12,000, and a car probably believes she has nothing worth planning for. She is wrong. She has a checking account that her family cannot access without going to court, a retirement account that will pass to whoever is named on the beneficiary form (or to her estate if no one is named), and a HIPAA wall that prevents her parents from getting medical updates if something goes wrong. The total cost of fixing all of that on the front end is typically between $400 and $1,200 in our area. The total cost of fixing it after the fact, in court, is significantly higher.
If you are a parent of a young adult, this is the conversation worth having before they leave for college, before they take that first job out of state, and before they move in with a partner. The documents are simple. The consequences of skipping them are not.
In your 30s: protect dependents and align beneficiaries
Your 30s are when estate planning shifts from "in case something happens to me" to "in case something happens to me and there are people who depend on what I leave behind." That shift changes the planning entirely.
What changes when you have a child
Estate planning priorities when minor children enter the picture
When a couple has minor children, the estate plan should address: (1) A guardian nomination in the will, naming the person who would raise the children if both parents are unavailable. (2) A successor guardian, in case the first choice cannot serve. (3) A testamentary trust or revocable living trust holding any assets that pass to the children, with a trustee who is not necessarily the same person as the guardian. (4) An age threshold for distributions (commonly between 25 and 35) so that a young adult does not receive a large inheritance the day they turn 18. (5) Term life insurance sufficient to fund the trust if both parents die. (6) Confirmed beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance, naming the trust (or an appropriate adult) rather than the minor children directly.
And quite candidly, the question of who would raise your children if you and your spouse were both gone is the question that brings most parents into our office in their 30s. It is also the question that most often goes unanswered for years because it is uncomfortable. Pick someone. Name a backup. Tell that person you have named them. Then revisit the choice every five years, because the right choice at 32 is often not the right choice at 41.
Term life insurance is the other thing I want to mention here, even though we are not insurance brokers. A 33-year-old with two young children and a mortgage typically needs significantly more life insurance than employer-provided coverage alone. Most of our clients in this stage carry term policies in the $500,000 to $2 million range, depending on income, debt, and family size. The estate plan and the insurance policy should work together, not separately.
In your 40s: review, refine, and consider trusts
Your 40s are typically the decade where the plan you built in your 30s starts to feel out of date. Your career has progressed. Your assets have grown. Your kids are older. The guardian you named when your oldest was three may no longer make sense now that he is twelve. The trustee you named when you had $80,000 in retirement may no longer be the right choice now that you have $400,000. The plan needs a hard look.
Common updates in your 40s
Estate plan review triggers in your 40s
Common updates that occur in this decade: (1) Beneficiary designations after a divorce, remarriage, or the birth of additional children. (2) Guardian and trustee selections, as children age and family circumstances change. (3) Adding a revocable living trust if you own real property in more than one state, want to avoid North Carolina probate (governed by NCGS Chapter 28A), or want privacy that a will alone does not provide. (4) A business succession plan if you own a business, including a buy-sell agreement and updated operating agreement. (5) Confirmation that beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance, and transfer-on-death accounts match the current estate plan.
Beneficiary designations are the silent failure point in most estate plans I see. Someone sets up a 401(k) at age 27, names a then-spouse or a parent as the beneficiary, and never updates that form for the next twenty years. The will gets updated. The beneficiary form does not. When the account holder dies, the beneficiary form controls, not the will, and a divorced ex-spouse or a deceased parent ends up as the named beneficiary. We find this in roughly half the cases that come through our office for an estate plan review. Check your beneficiary forms. All of them. This decade.
When a revocable living trust starts to make sense
A revocable living trust is not necessary for everyone, and I want to be honest about that. For many North Carolina families, a properly drafted will works fine. Where the trust earns its keep is in three specific situations: (1) you own real property in more than one state, which would otherwise require ancillary probate proceedings outside North Carolina; (2) you want privacy, because wills become public record after death and trusts generally do not; or (3) you have a blended family or other circumstances where you want detailed control over how and when assets pass. If none of those applies to you, a will may be the right tool. If one or more applies, a trust is worth the conversation.
In your 50s: coordinate retirement, beneficiaries, and tax planning
Your 50s are when the retirement plan and the estate plan need to start talking to each other. For most families, the largest single asset by this stage is no longer the house. It is the 401(k), the 403(b), the IRA, or the combination. And those accounts are governed by an entirely separate set of rules from the rest of your estate.
The SECURE Act and the 10-year rule
SECURE Act 10-year rule for inherited retirement accounts
Under the SECURE Act of 2019 (Public Law 116-94, Division O), most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherit a retirement account from someone who dies after December 31, 2019 must withdraw the entire account balance by the end of the tenth calendar year following the year of the account owner's death. The IRS finalized implementing regulations in Treasury Decision 10001, published July 19, 2024, and effective for distribution calendar years beginning January 1, 2025. If the original account owner had already reached their required beginning date for required minimum distributions before death, the beneficiary must take annual required minimum distributions in years one through nine and fully deplete the account by the end of year ten. If the original owner died before their required beginning date, the beneficiary must still empty the account by the end of year ten but is not required to take annual distributions during the prior nine years. Eligible designated beneficiaries—surviving spouses, minor children of the deceased owner, disabled or chronically ill individuals, and individuals not more than ten years younger than the deceased—are exempt from the 10-year rule and may stretch distributions over their life expectancy.
Here is what this means in practical terms. If you have a $1.2 million traditional IRA and you name your adult child as the beneficiary, that child has ten years to empty the account after your death. Every dollar withdrawn is taxed as ordinary income in the year it comes out. If your child is in her peak earning years when she inherits, ten years of forced distributions can push her into the highest federal tax bracket and cost her a significant portion of the inheritance to taxes. The estate plan you built in your 40s did not contemplate any of this, because the rules did not exist until 2019 and the final regulations did not exist until 2024.
There are strategies that can soften the impact: Roth conversions during your low-income years, naming a charitable remainder trust as the beneficiary, splitting the account across multiple beneficiaries, or using a see-through trust. None of these are universally right, and quite candidly, none of them are simple. This is the decade to bring your retirement account beneficiaries into the same conversation as your estate plan, ideally with both an estate planning attorney and a tax professional in the room.
In your 60s: estate tax, gifting, and legacy planning
In your 60s, the federal estate tax may or may not be a concern depending on the size of your estate, but the question is finally worth asking out loud. The rules for 2026 are different from the rules in any prior year, and they are different in ways that materially change planning.
The 2026 federal estate tax exemption
Federal estate tax exemption for 2026 (United States)
For estates of decedents dying in calendar year 2026, the federal estate and gift tax basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000 per individual, or $30,000,000 per married couple with proper portability planning. This exemption was established by Section 70106 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21), signed into law on July 4, 2025, which amended Internal Revenue Code Section 2010(c)(3). The 2026 exemption was confirmed by the IRS in Revenue Procedure 2025-32, released October 9, 2025 (IR-2025-103). The previously scheduled 2026 sunset of the higher exemption was eliminated; the $15,000,000 amount is now permanent and will be indexed for inflation beginning in 2027. The annual gift tax exclusion for 2026 is $19,000 per recipient, and the annual exclusion for gifts to a non-citizen spouse is $194,000. Estates that exceed the $15,000,000 exemption are taxed at 40 percent on the excess.
The practical effect of the 2026 exemption is that the federal estate tax now applies to a very small percentage of estates. According to Congressional Research Service estimates, roughly 0.07 percent of decedents pay any federal estate tax under exemption levels in this range. If your total estate, including life insurance death benefits and retirement accounts, is well under $15 million for a single person or $30 million for a married couple, the federal estate tax probably is not your concern.
That said, there are three reasons we still have detailed federal tax conversations with clients in their 60s. First, North Carolina does not currently impose its own estate tax, but other states where you may own property do, and those state thresholds are often dramatically lower than the federal one. Second, the federal exemption can change with future legislation, and clients with estates above $7 to $10 million who plan to live another 20 to 30 years should not assume the current rules will hold. Third, lifetime gifting strategies (using the annual exclusion or making larger taxable gifts that consume part of the lifetime exemption) often work better when started earlier, even if the exemption is permanent.
Long-term care funding
The other major decision in your 60s is how you plan to pay for long-term care if you need it. Long-term care insurance, self-funding through dedicated assets, hybrid life insurance products with long-term care riders, and Medicaid planning are the four primary options. Each has tradeoffs, and the right choice depends on your assets, your health, your family's caregiving capacity, and your tolerance for paying premiums on a policy you may never use. We do not sell insurance and we do not have a horse in this race; we just want clients to make this decision deliberately rather than by default.
In your 70s: distributions, directives, and incapacity planning
Your 70s are the decade where required minimum distributions begin and where incapacity planning becomes more concrete than theoretical. Both deserve attention.
Required minimum distributions and the SECURE 2.0 age changes
Required minimum distribution beginning ages under SECURE 2.0
Under Section 107 of the SECURE 2.0 Act (Public Law 117-328, Division T, signed December 29, 2022), the required beginning date for required minimum distributions from traditional retirement accounts has been raised. For an individual who attains age 72 after December 31, 2022 and age 73 before January 1, 2033, the applicable required beginning age is 73. For an individual who attains age 74 after December 31, 2032, the applicable required beginning age is 75. The first required minimum distribution must be taken by April 1 of the year following the year the individual attains the applicable age. The excise tax on a missed required minimum distribution was reduced by SECURE 2.0 from 50 percent to 25 percent of the missed amount, with a further reduction to 10 percent if the missed distribution is corrected within two years.
Required minimum distributions are not optional, and the penalties for missing them are significant. We work alongside clients' financial advisors and tax preparers to make sure the distribution schedule, the withholding, and the estate plan are aligned. If you have multiple retirement accounts at different custodians, the rules for which accounts must take separate distributions and which can be aggregated are technical, and getting them wrong is expensive.
Updating advance directives and the team that supports you
Beyond the tax mechanics, your 70s are the right time to revisit the human side of the plan. The friend you named as your health care agent at 58 may now be 75 herself and dealing with her own health issues. The successor trustee who seemed perfect at 60 may have moved across the country. The advance directive you signed in 2009 may not reflect the current medical landscape or your current preferences. Pull the documents out, read them, and ask whether the people named are still the right people.
In your 80s and beyond: simplify, confirm, and protect
In your 80s and beyond, the goal of estate planning shifts again. The plan you built earlier should still hold, but the focus is now on simplification, confirming that fiduciaries are still able and willing to serve, and ensuring that whoever steps in to help with finances and health care has the legal authority to do so.
Late-life estate planning priorities
Estate planning priorities in your 80s and beyond
Common priorities at this stage include: (1) Reviewing the will and any trusts to confirm they still reflect current wishes and family circumstances. (2) Confirming that the named executor, trustee, agent under power of attorney, and health care agent are all still able and willing to serve, and naming successors if not. (3) Consolidating accounts where appropriate to simplify administration. (4) Ensuring that the financial power of attorney is durable, current, and accepted by the financial institutions where assets are held. (5) Reviewing the advance directive and health care power of attorney in light of any recent changes in health or preferences. (6) Confirming digital asset access (online accounts, cloud storage, password managers) is documented and accessible to the appropriate person. (7) Considering charitable giving strategies, including qualified charitable distributions from IRAs (which can satisfy required minimum distributions for individuals age 70½ or older, up to the annual limit set by the IRS).
The single most common problem we see in estate planning for clients in their 80s is not a missing will or an outdated trust. It is a financial power of attorney that the bank refuses to accept because it is fifteen years old or because it does not include the specific authority the bank wants to see. North Carolina's Uniform Power of Attorney Act under Chapter 32C, which became effective January 1, 2018, modernized the rules and created stronger protection for principals whose POAs are wrongly rejected, but the practical reality is that financial institutions still scrutinize older documents. If your power of attorney is more than five years old or was executed before 2018, this is the year to refresh it.
When your plan needs an update, regardless of age
The decade-by-decade framework above is a useful baseline, but life events drive most plan updates more than calendar age does. Watch for these triggers.
Estate plan update triggers
Major life events that should prompt an estate plan review: (1) Marriage or divorce (yours or that of a named beneficiary or fiduciary). (2) Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild. (3) Death of a named beneficiary, executor, trustee, agent, or health care agent. (4) Significant change in financial circumstances (inheritance, business sale, large investment gain or loss). (5) Move to or from another state, or purchase of property in another state. (6) Change in federal or state tax law (such as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, which materially changed estate tax planning). (7) Diagnosis of a serious illness in yourself or a family member. (8) Estrangement from or reconciliation with a family member who would otherwise be involved in the plan. (9) Change in a beneficiary's circumstances (disability, addiction, marriage, divorce, financial difficulty, creditor exposure). (10) Passage of five years without any plan review, even if no specific event has occurred.
Most clients we work with come back to us every three to five years for a plan review even when nothing dramatic has changed. The cost of a review is small. The cost of finding out at the worst possible moment that the plan no longer reflects current law or current life circumstances is much higher.
Where to go from here
This page is a checklist, not a plan. It tells you what belongs on the agenda at each stage of life, but the actual plan depends on your specific circumstances, your family, your assets, and the way North Carolina law and federal tax rules apply to you.
If you want to dig deeper into specific topics covered above, three of the spoke pages in this guide expand on the most consequential decisions:
• Will vs. Trust: A Decision Guide for Every Life Stage — when a revocable living trust earns its keep, and when a will alone is the right tool.
• Probate Explained: How It Works in North Carolina and Beyond — what probate actually involves under NCGS Chapter 28A, how long it takes, and when it can be avoided.
• Estate Tax Planning: 2026 and Beyond — the $15 million 2026 exemption, gifting strategies, and the planning implications of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
You can also review our supporting glossary nodes:
• Fiduciary — what fiduciary duty actually requires under North Carolina law.
• Executor vs. Trustee — the differences between these two roles, and why most plans need both.
• Probate (North Carolina) — North Carolina's probate process from qualification through final accounting.
• Intestate Succession (NCGS Chapter 29) — what happens to your assets if you die without a valid will.
If we can help
Estate planning is one of those areas where the right plan, built at the right time, prevents problems that the wrong plan or no plan at all would create. We work with families across North Carolina to build estate plans that fit their actual life stage, not a generic template.
If we can be of assistance to you, please reach out at 919-647-9599. You can also schedule a discovery call directly through our website. We will look at where you are, what you have in place, and what changes may be worth making between now and the next time life nudges your plan.
Sources and authority: All North Carolina statutory citations and federal tax authority referenced on this page are listed in our
About the Author
Jason Walls, J.D., is the Founder and Chief Legal Officer of The Walls Law Group, a North Carolina law firm focused on helping business owners and families protect, preserve, and transfer wealth through estate, business, and asset protection planning.
This content was reviewed on July 7th, 2026. The information on this page reflects North Carolina law and federal authority current as of April 2026.
This content is for general educational purposes only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Estate planning is highly fact-specific and depends on your family situation, the assets you own, the state you live in, and the way North Carolina and federal law apply to you. Before you act on anything in this guide, please speak with a licensed attorney in your state about your specific circumstances.
