Estate Planning for Married Couples

Most married couples use one joint revocable living trust. It holds what you already own together, it is a single document to fund and maintain, and at the first death everything continues for the surviving spouse without probate. Two separate trusts are worth the extra complexity in specific situations: children from a prior relationship whose inheritance you want locked in, significant premarital or inherited assets you intend to keep separate, or one spouse carrying creditor or professional-liability exposure. If you are deciding between the two, start with whether a trust or a will fits your situation, then see what a trust costs in your state.

Each spouse makes their own will. A will speaks for one person — it names that person's executor, that person's guardians, and disposes of that person's property — so a married couple makes two, usually mirroring each other. Joint wills (a single document for both spouses) are a legacy form that can bind the survivor and are rarely used today. If you have a revocable trust, each spouse still signs a pour-over will to catch anything never retitled into it. You can make a will for each of you with your state's witness and notary requirements built in.

No. Retirement accounts and life insurance pay whoever is named on the beneficiary form, even if you filled it out a decade before the wedding, and that form outranks your will. There is one federal backstop: an employer 401(k) requires your spouse's written, notarized consent before you can name anyone else (29 U.S.C. § 1055). An IRA has no such requirement — you can name anyone, and your spouse may never know. Start by checking who is actually on file for every account.

Generally not, and this surprises people. In 43 of 51 jurisdictions a surviving spouse can ignore the will and elect a statutory share of the estate instead — commonly a third to a half, claimed within a deadline set by statute. The community property states largely do without an elective share because community property already gives the survivor half of everything earned during the marriage. Disinheriting a spouse takes a valid written waiver, not silence in a will.

Joint tenancy means you each own the whole asset, so when one of you dies the other simply owns it all. Community property, in the 9 states that use it, means what you acquire during the marriage is owned half-and-half from the moment you acquire it. Both avoid probate at the first death, but the tax result differs sharply: community property gets a stepped-up basis on both halves, joint tenancy on only the deceased spouse's half. For a long-held asset that has appreciated, that difference is the whole ballgame — run it through the step-up basis calculator.

Almost certainly not. The federal exemption is $15,000,00026 USC 2001(c), 2010; P.L. 119-21 §70106Verified Jul 13, 2026View source per person, anything left to a spouse passes tax-free under the unlimited marital deduction, and portability lets the survivor add whatever their spouse did not use — $30,000,00026 USC 2001(c), 2010; P.L. 119-21 §70106Verified Jul 13, 2026View source between you. The part actually worth checking is your state: 12 jurisdictions levy their own estate tax and 5 tax the beneficiary directly, at thresholds far below the federal one. See what your state does.

This is where the defaults fail hardest. Die without a plan and your assets can pass entirely to your surviving spouse, who is then free to leave them to anyone — with nothing obliging them to reach your children. A trust is what lets you provide for your spouse for life and still direct what remains to your kids. Check what your state would do on its own with the who inherits calculator.