Upholding Original Will Prior to Remarrying

Whether your father's marriage directly affected his Will depends on how the Will itself is written: if it did not specifically contemplate his possible remarriage and state what was to happen (or not happen) if he remarried, then his remarriage effectively partially revoked the Will. If that happened and she survives him, he would be treated as if he had no Will with regard to her, meaning she would get a share of the probate estate (no less than 1/3). If it did specifically contemplate the remarriage, then the actual effect depends on what it said. Many of the Wills I prepare for unmarried clients provide that a later marriage does not have any effect on the terms of the Will itself. However, the Will is not the only factor. The new spouse does not automatically receive property just because of the relationship to the deceased. A surviving spouse in Georgia does have the right to make a claim against a deceased spouse's probate estate for a "year's support." If unchallenged, this can mean that the entire probate estate passes to the spouse, rather than to any other beneficiaries under the Will. If your father's spouse made a year's support claim and his children challenged it, that can become expensive, full-blown litigation, and the amount the spouse will actually receive from the claim will be determined by the probate court. There is not a set amount for year's support: it's supposed to be whatever is needed to support the claimant for one year after the deceased person's death, taking into account the claimant's other resources. There are ways to reduce the possibility that a year's support claim would be brought or will succeed, but your father will need to update his estate planning to do so. Finally, asset ownership and beneficiary designations are also critical, because they can override the terms of any Will. If your father adds his spouse to his bank or brokerage accounts as a joint owner, or if he names her as a beneficiary under any beneficiary designation (including life insurance and IRA beneficiary designations as well as payable on death or transfer on death designations), she will receive those assets automatically at his death if she survives him, no matter what the Will says, and without any need for a year's support claim. If they own real estate as "joint tenants," she will automatically receive his interest in that real estate at his death; if they own it as "tenants in common," then his share becomes part of his probate estate, but she still owns her share and may be able to make a claim against his estate for the other part under year's support. Short answer is: your father may not absolutely need to update his Will just because he got remarried, but there's no way to know what will happen at his death without a full estate planning review. He ideally should get a good estate planning attorney and have a consultation, so he knows what he wants to have happen and how to ensure that it happens that way.