Estate Planning After Divorce in Arizona

Arizona automatically revokes your ex-spouse from most estate planning documents the moment your divorce is final. That sounds like the law has you covered — and for many instruments, it does. But the gap between "most" and "all" is where estates end up in litigation.

What A.R.S. § 14-2804 Does Automatically

Arizona's revocation-on-divorce statute is one of the more comprehensive in the country. When the Decree of Dissolution is entered, the following changes happen by operation of law:

Revoked dispositions: Any gift of property to your ex-spouse in your will or living trust is treated as if your ex predeceased you. The property passes to the next named beneficiary or through intestacy.

Revoked fiduciary nominations: Your ex-spouse is automatically removed from any role as personal representative (executor), trustee, conservator, or guardian named in your estate documents.

Revoked agency powers: Any power of attorney — financial or healthcare — naming your ex-spouse as agent is automatically revoked.

Severed survivorship: Joint tenancy with right of survivorship and community property with right of survivorship are automatically converted to tenancy in common. Your ex no longer inherits your share by operation of law.

POD and TOD accounts: Payable-on-death bank designations and transfer-on-death securities naming your ex-spouse are revoked.

What the Statute Cannot Reach

The automatic protections stop at federal law. Under the Supremacy Clause, the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) preempts Arizona's state-level revocation statute. The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed this in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff (532 U.S. 141).

This means:

• Employer 401(k) plans — still pay your ex if they're the named beneficiary
• 403(b) plans — same
• Employer pensions — same
• Group life insurance — same

For these accounts, you must actively submit new beneficiary designation forms to your employer's plan administrator. The divorce decree, Arizona statute, and your new will are all irrelevant — the plan administrator follows the beneficiary form on file.

What You Should Do Now

Even though the statute handles most instruments automatically, relying on automatic revocation is risky. Institutions don't always know you're divorced. Banks, insurance companies, and custodians have no notification system for divorce decrees — they rely on the documents they have on file.

Execute a New Will

Write a new will that reflects your current wishes. If your old will left everything to your ex-spouse, the revocation statute treats them as predeceased — but that may route your assets to beneficiaries you wouldn't choose today. A new will gives you explicit control.

Execute a New Healthcare Directive

Your ex-spouse can no longer make medical decisions for you under the old directive, but if you're in an emergency room and the hospital has your old paperwork on file, confusion delays critical decisions. A new directive naming your chosen agent eliminates ambiguity.

Execute a New Financial Power of Attorney

Same logic: the old one is legally revoked, but a new document in the hands of your bank and financial institutions prevents delays when you actually need someone to act on your behalf.

Update All Beneficiary Forms

Go through every account — retirement plans, life insurance, bank accounts, brokerage accounts — and submit new beneficiary designation forms. For ERISA-governed plans, this is not optional; the automatic revocation does not apply.

Review Your Trust

If you have a revocable living trust, update the trust document to remove your ex-spouse as beneficiary and successor trustee. Fund any newly acquired assets into the trust.

The Arizona After-Divorce Checklist includes a beneficiary audit worksheet and an estate planning update checklist that walks through every document and account type with specific update instructions.

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