United States • State law varies • Plain English
This is general legal information, not legal advice.

Estate Planning Checklist (US)

Will • financial power of attorney • health-care directive • beneficiary designations • transfer-on-death deeds • digital assets • federal estate tax filing
Quick summary: an estate plan in the United States is not one document. It is a small set of documents plus a set of beneficiary designations — and the designations often decide more than the will does.
Wills, probate, intestacy, powers of attorney, transfer-on-death deeds and advance directives are all state law. There is no national US estate statute. The federal layer is essentially tax (IRS) and health-record privacy (HIPAA), and HIPAA itself defers to state law on who is allowed to act for you.
Specialty: US estate planning structured as a checklist — which documents you need, which assets never pass under a will, which formalities decide validity, and which questions only your own state can answer.
If you are starting from nothing, tidying up after a marriage, divorce, birth or house move, or trying to work out why a parent’s will did not control their retirement account, this page shows you where the real decisions sit.
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Document gaps
Beneficiary audit
State questions
Digital assets
Best for people saying:
  • “I don’t know what documents I’m missing.”
  • “I have a will — is that enough?”
  • “My ex is still on my 401(k) beneficiary form.”
  • “We just moved to a different state.”
  • “Nobody can get into Dad’s online accounts.”
  • “Do we have to file anything with the IRS?”
You can start with one paragraph. We’ll ask only what’s needed.

How this checklist works

Three steps — documents, then designations, then the state questions.
1) List what you actually own
Split it into two columns: things that pass under a will, and things that pass by a beneficiary form, a deed or a joint title. The second column is usually larger than people expect.
Example: “House, 401(k), life policy, two bank accounts, a business share.”
2) Match each item to a document
Money decisions, health decisions and health records are three separate authorisations. A will handles none of them while you are alive.
You end up with a short list of gaps, not a pile of forms.
3) Take the state questions to a state lawyer
Witness rules, notarisation, small-estate procedures, elective shares and state death taxes are all set by your state. This page tells you which questions to ask.
Cheaper than paying someone to work out what you want.

Why there is no single “US estate plan”

This is the fact that makes every generic online answer unreliable.
The model laws you will see quoted — the Uniform Probate Code, the Uniform Electronic Wills Act, the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, the Uniform Power of Attorney Act — are drafted by the Uniform Law Commission. They have no force in any state until that state’s legislature enacts them, and states routinely amend them on the way in. That is precisely why the rules differ from state to state.
The federal layer is narrow: the IRS sets estate tax filing rules, and HIPAA governs who may see your health records. Even there, HHS guidance is explicit that state or other law determines who is authorised to act on an individual’s behalf.
What this means for you: use this page for the structure and the questions; get the answers from your own state. A rule that works in one state can be void, unavailable or executed differently in the next.

The documents on the checklist

Five things. Most people have one or two of them.
1) A will
Controls the assets that go through probate, names your executor, and names a guardian for minor children where your state allows it.
Without one, your state’s intestacy statute decides — including, under the Uniform Probate Code model, a 120-hour survival requirement.
2) A financial power of attorney
Lets a chosen agent deal with money and property if you cannot. Under the Uniform Power of Attorney Act, someone who in good faith accepts an acknowledged (notarised) power of attorney, without knowing it has ended, may rely on it — which is why the unnotarised one gets refused.
It does not cover medical decisions.
3) A health-care directive
MedlinePlus (NIH) describes advance directives as two parts: a living will saying which treatments you want if you are dying or permanently unconscious, and a durable power of attorney for health care naming a proxy to decide for you if you cannot.
The Uniform Power of Attorney Act expressly excludes health-care decisions — separate document, every time.
4) Health-information access
HIPAA requires a covered entity to treat your personal representative like you. But a power of attorney that does not include health care in its scope will not authorise the holder to exercise your rights under the Privacy Rule.
A provider may also decline to recognise someone it reasonably believes may be abusing or neglecting you.
5) Your beneficiary designations
Not a document you sign once — a list you maintain. Retirement accounts, life insurance, payable-on-death accounts and TOD deeds each carry their own nomination.
This is the item most often left stale after a divorce or a death.
Optional: nominate a guardian for yourself
The Uniform Power of Attorney Act lets a principal nominate the guardian a court should appoint, and directs the court to appoint in accordance with your most recent nomination. That direction is bracketed in the model act — optional for each legislature — so even a state that enacted the Act may not have taken it. Check yours.

The assets your will does not control

If you read only one section, read this one.
Uniform Probate Code § 6-101 makes non-probate death transfers in written instruments non-testamentary: a beneficiary form operates on its own terms and the will does not override it. Naming your children in your will does nothing to a retirement account that still names an ex-spouse.
Transfer-on-death (TOD) deeds — where a state offers them
  • A TOD deed transfers real property to one or more beneficiaries effective at the owner’s death. It is revocable and non-testamentary.
  • Formalities: it must be acknowledged before a notary and recorded before the transferor dies. If the land sits in more than one county, record it in each county.
  • Notice, delivery, acceptance and consideration are not required — the beneficiary need not know and cannot block a revocation.
  • During your lifetime it does not restrict your right to sell or mortgage the property, does not sever a joint tenancy, does not affect Medicaid or other public-assistance eligibility, and gives the beneficiary no interest.
  • It passes title without covenant or warranty of title even if the deed says otherwise.
  • Revocation uses the act’s own form, must itself be recorded before death, and binds only the owners who sign it.
The Uniform Probate Code’s homicide provision (§ 2-803) likewise reaches joint assets, life insurance and beneficiary designations, not just probate property.

Making the will valid: formalities, not good intentions

Courts do not ask whether your wishes were clear. They ask whether the signing complied.
  • Execution. Uniform Probate Code § 2-502 is titled “Execution; Witnessed or Notarized Wills; Holographic Wills”. A 2008 amendment allowed notarised wills as an alternative to wills attested by two witnesses — but only in states that adopted that amendment. Do not assume yours did.
  • Who may witness is a separate section (§ 2-505). A self-proved will (§ 2-504) is an extra step that saves your executor producing witnesses in probate later.
  • Harmless error (§ 2-503) is a safety net for a defective document, not a plan — relying on it means litigation.
  • Electronic wills only work where the state has enacted an e-wills statute. Under the Uniform Electronic Wills Act § 5 the will must be a record readable as text at the time of signing — a video or audio recording is not an electronic will. Remote witnessing by “electronic presence” is a bracketed, optional feature each state chooses separately.
  • Moving state re-opens the question. The Uniform Electronic Wills Act carries its own choice-of-law section — keyed to where the testator was physically located when signing, or domiciled at signing or at death — and it exists because states disagree.
Ask your state three questions: how many witnesses, may a beneficiary witness, and is notarisation required, permitted or irrelevant?

Digital assets and online accounts

Being named in a will does not get anybody into an account.
Access to online accounts is normally governed by the provider’s terms-of-service agreement rather than by property law — the problem the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act was written to solve.
  • The act covers four fiduciaries only: the personal representative of a decedent’s estate, a conservator for a protected person, an agent under a power of attorney, and a trustee. Family or friends who are not fiduciaries fall outside it.
  • Check the provider’s own online tool first. Where a custodian has not provided an online tool for directing disclosure, the user may allow or prohibit disclosure of some or all digital assets to a fiduciary in a will, trust, power of attorney or other record.
Practical step: list your accounts and record whether each provider has a legacy-contact tool and whether you used it. Never write passwords into a will — a will admitted to probate can become a public court record, and whether it does is a state question.

Federal estate tax: a filing question before it is a payment question

The only genuinely national numbers on this page.
  • The IRS filing threshold is $13,990,000 for people who died in 2025 and $15,000,000 for 2026. A return is required where the gross estate exceeds the threshold for the year of death.
  • The return is Form 706, due nine months after the date of death.
  • An automatic six-month extension of time to file is available to all estates by filing Form 4768.
  • Portability trap. To transfer a deceased spouse’s unused exclusion to the survivor, the estate’s representative must file Form 706 and the return must be filed timely — so a return can be needed even where no tax is owed.
State death taxes are separate, with their own thresholds and deadlines. We have deliberately printed no state figure here because we could not verify one against a state revenue source. Check your state directly.

What should trigger a review

Events, not a calendar.
Marriage, divorce or separation
Filing for dissolution, annulment or legal separation revokes a spouse-agent’s authority under the Uniform Power of Attorney Act. Beneficiary forms do not update themselves.
A birth, or a death in the family
New beneficiaries, and named people no longer available to act.
Moving to another state
Different formalities, different probate procedure, possibly different death taxes.
Buying or selling real property
A TOD deed must be recorded in every county where the land sits, and only before death.
A new account or policy
Each one adds a designation that outranks your will.
Your agent’s circumstances change
Illness, distance or a fallout — anything that makes them the wrong person to trust with money.
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Long FAQ (US estate planning checklist)

Tap to expand. Written for US readers in plain English. State law varies throughout.
1) Is a will enough on its own?
No. A will only takes effect on death and only controls probate assets. It does nothing about money or health decisions while you are alive, and it does not override beneficiary designations or transfer-on-death instruments, which the Uniform Probate Code treats as non-testamentary.
2) Does my financial power of attorney cover medical decisions?
Not under the Uniform Power of Attorney Act, which excludes powers to make health-care decisions from its scope and does not empower the agent to make them. You need a separate health-care document.
3) Will my bank power of attorney get me my parent’s medical records?
No. HHS guidance on HIPAA is direct about this: a power of attorney that does not include decisions related to health care in its scope would not authorise the holder to exercise the individual’s rights under the Privacy Rule.
4) How many witnesses does my will need?
That is a state question and we will not give you a national number. The Uniform Probate Code model requires attestation by two witnesses, and a 2008 amendment allowed notarisation as an alternative — but only states that adopted that amendment accept the notarised route. Check your own state’s statute.
5) What happens if I die without a will?
Your state’s intestacy statute decides who inherits, in a fixed order that may not match your wishes. Under the Uniform Probate Code model there is also a 120-hour survival requirement, so a beneficiary who dies shortly after you may be treated as not having survived you.
6) Can I sign my will electronically?
Only if your state has enacted an electronic wills statute. Under the Uniform Electronic Wills Act the will must be a record readable as text at the time of signing, so a video is not a will, and remote witnessing by “electronic presence” is an optional feature each state chooses for itself.
7) What is a transfer-on-death deed and does my state have one?
It transfers real property to a named beneficiary at the owner’s death, without probate. Under the uniform act it must be acknowledged before a notary and recorded before death, it is freely revocable, the beneficiary gets nothing during your lifetime, and it carries no warranty of title. Whether your state offers one at all is a state question — check before you rely on it.
8) Do we have to file anything with the IRS?
A federal estate tax return, Form 706, is required where the gross estate exceeds the threshold for the year of death — $13,990,000 for 2025 deaths and $15,000,000 for 2026. It is due nine months after death, with an automatic six-month filing extension available on Form 4768.
9) We are nowhere near the threshold — is there any reason to file?
Possibly, yes. To elect portability of a deceased spouse’s unused exclusion for the surviving spouse, the estate’s representative must file Form 706 and it must be filed timely. Missing that deadline can lose the election even though no tax was ever due. Take advice quickly after a death.
10) How do my family get into my online accounts?
Only if they are one of the four fiduciaries the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act covers — personal representative, conservator, POA agent or trustee — and only where you used the provider’s own online tool or gave a direction in your will, trust, power of attorney or another record. Relatives who hold no fiduciary role fall outside the act.
11) Are my health records private after I die?
HHS guidance states the Privacy Rule protects a decedent’s individually identifiable health information for 50 years following the date of death. During that period the personal representative — the executor or administrator, or a person legally authorised by a court or state law to act for the deceased or the estate — may exercise Privacy Rule rights.
12) Does this page apply in the UK, Ireland, Australia or Canada?
No. It is US-only. England & Wales uses different instruments — an advance decision and a Lasting Power of Attorney — with their own validity rules; Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate regimes again, as do Ireland, Australia and Canada. Nothing on this page transfers. For the England & Wales version, see the estate planning checklist for England & Wales linked below.
13) Can Dogetlawyer help me work out my next step?
Yes — AI Lawyer can help you organise what you own, list the documents you are missing and build a checklist of the questions to put to a lawyer licensed in your state. For personalised legal advice, and for anything involving execution formalities or tax, speak to that lawyer before you sign.
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This is general legal information, not legal advice.