South Carolina has no state estate or inheritance tax, but federal estate tax can still reach 40% on estates above the $15 million exemption in 2026. A few avoidable mistakes can also send even modest estates straight into probate.
The five most common estate planning mistakes are simple to name and devastating to fix after the fact: not having a plan, letting an old plan go stale, failing to fund a revocable trust, naming the wrong people in key roles, and forgetting about beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance. Any one of them can push your family into probate, trigger conflict among heirs, or send assets to people you never intended. South Carolina has no state estate or inheritance tax, but federal estate tax still applies to larger estates, and probate alone can drain time and money from a grieving family. A Florence and Myrtle Beach estate planning attorney can help you build a plan that holds up when your family needs it most.
1. Not Having an Estate Plan at All
The biggest estate planning mistake is the easiest to make: doing nothing. If you die without a will in South Carolina, the state’s intestacy laws decide who inherits your property, not you.
Under South Carolina’s rules for distributing an estate without a will, a surviving spouse with no children inherits everything
A surviving spouse with children only takes half of the intestate estate, with the rest going to the children. This means the family home, if it is part of the intestate estate, could become jointly owned between the surviving spouse and the children, with no guarantee the spouse can remain in it without the children’s agreement. When the children are minors, it can create additional problems.
Unmarried partners, stepchildren you never legally adopted, and friends or charities you wanted to help receive nothing under intestacy.
How to avoid it: Put a basic plan in place now. At minimum, most adults need a will, a durable power of attorney, and a health care power of attorney. You can add a revocable living trust later if your situation calls for one.
2. Letting Your Estate Plan Go Out of Date
An estate plan is not a one-and-done document. Substantial life changes can quietly break a plan that worked perfectly when you signed it years ago.
Review and update your plan after any of these events:
- Marriage, divorce, or remarriage
- Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild
- Death of a spouse, beneficiary, or named executor
- A move to or from South Carolina
- Major changes in assets, business interests, or net worth
- Significant changes in federal or state tax law
How to avoid it: Even without a major life event, plans should be reviewed every three to five years. The federal estate tax exemption itself recently changed. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law in July 2025, the exemption rose to $15 million per individual ($30 million per married couple) for 2026, and that affects how older trust documents should be structured for tax purposes.
3. Failing to Fund a Revocable Trust
Creating a revocable living trust is only half the work. A trust controls only the assets you have actually transferred into it. If you set up a trust but leave your house, bank accounts, or investment accounts titled in your individual name, those assets still pass through probate, and the privacy and probate-avoidance benefits of the trust are lost.
Properly funding a South Carolina revocable trust usually means:
- Recording new deeds that retitle real estate into the trust
- Updating bank and brokerage accounts to be held in the trust’s name
- Reviewing whether business interests, vehicles, and personal property should be transferred
- Confirming beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance line up with the overall plan
How to avoid it: Treat funding as part of the engagement when you create the trust, and revisit titling whenever you buy a new home or open a new account.
4. Naming the Wrong Executor, Trustee, or Agent
Choosing the people who carry out your wishes is as important as drafting the documents. In South Carolina, your executor (called a personal representative) handles the probate estate, your trustee manages trust property, and your agent under a power of attorney makes financial or health care decisions if you cannot act for yourself.
Common mistakes when naming fiduciaries include:
- Defaulting to the oldest child or a longtime friend who is not actually well-suited to the role
- Choosing someone with serious financial trouble, a conflict of interest, or no time to take on the work
- Failing to name a backup if your first choice cannot serve
How to avoid it: Pick people who are organized, financially stable, and willing to take on the job. Always name at least one alternate, and have a candid conversation with each person before adding them to the document.
5. Forgetting Beneficiary Designations
Many of the assets that matter most never pass through a will. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, annuities, and many bank and brokerage accounts pay out directly to whoever is named on the beneficiary designation form, regardless of what your will says. A single outdated form can override years of careful planning, sending a 401(k) to an ex-spouse listed decades ago or pushing an IRA into probate because the named beneficiary predeceased you.
How to avoid it: Pull together every retirement account, life insurance policy, and payable-on-death account, and confirm both the primary and contingent beneficiaries. Update the forms after marriage, divorce, births, and deaths, and keep copies with your estate planning file.
How These Mistakes Compound in South Carolina
These five mistakes rarely show up alone. An outdated plan often pairs with an unfunded trust and stale beneficiary forms, so what looked like a complete plan ends up running through the probate court anyway. South Carolina has no state estate or inheritance tax, but probate is still public, takes months, and creates fees that can erode a modest estate quickly. The goal of a good plan is not just minimizing tax: it is minimizing friction for the people you love.
Talk to a Florence or Myrtle Beach Estate Planning Attorney Today
If you have not reviewed your estate plan in the last few years, or have never created one, now is the time. Willcox, Buyck & Williams, P.A. has helped South Carolina families plan and protect their estates since 1895, with offices in Florence and Myrtle Beach. Contact our firm to schedule a consultation and put a plan in place that holds up when your family needs it.
