Some misinformed people choose to believe that administering a deceased estate is simple and easy, and therefore they think that they can save the estate some money by doing it themselves, without a specialist lawyer to assist them.
Those people don’t realise that for the executor of the Will of a deceased person in South Australia, DIY means taking all the risk upon themselves for no reward.
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Why? Because he was a busy person who preferred to have it done for him, and he believed (justifiably) that the chef in the kitchen had access to professional carving knives that would make sharper cleaner cuts than Elvis could achieve for himself.
The ‘King’ recognised the efficiency of employing a specialist to do something better than he could do for himself.
You remember the famous words “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life!”
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After 37 years in legal practice, there isn’t much that still surprises Rod Genders.
He’s pretty much seen it all.
His law firm is the oldest in South Australia – established in 1848 – and like his father and his grandfather before him, Genders has spent his entire working life in the law, helping generations of Australian families to sort out a multitude of legal issues.
His areas of expertise are Wills and estates, and he describes witnessing a massive increase in litigation in these areas.
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Australia has committed to a national COVID vaccination program – described as the largest peacetime operation in Australia.
Australia’s federal industrial relations minister Christian Porter has reportedly told employers the government will not mandate vaccines in workplaces.
That means making the legality of workplace vaccination policies more “black-and-white” will need to come from the state and territory governments, using their regulatory powers under their work health and safety acts.
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By signing a Power of Attorney you do NOT lose control over your affairs while you are able to manage them.
As long as you retain your capacity, you can always vary or revoke your own power of attorney, and you can place limitations on your agent which vary according to your requirements.
Most people execute an unrestricted Enduring Power of Attorney.
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COVID has been scary and frustrating for most of us, and the future remains uncertain.
But if you were looking for a silver lining in all this, I can maybe offer two observations:
1. People have had to learn how to connect digitally a lot more efficiently, so we are all a lot more familiar with zoom meetings now.
This will hopefully mean that we stay connected a bit better from now on, no matter how busy the world gets again.
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I’ve been trying to educate people for years that trying to DIY the most important legal document in your life is a really bad idea.
Wills and estates are specialised areas of law, and when you don’t know what you’re doing, it is very easy to make critical errors trying to do this yourself.
Any mistakes you make won’t become apparent until you die, and it’s too late for you to fix them, so it will be your family who has the stress and cost of dealing with it all.
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I did a test today, and researched the cost of buying a parachute.
The prices varied between $200 for a used army surplus item, through to $10,000 for a brand new high performance competition model.
In between I found a few reputable Australian manufacturers with decades of specialist experience, quality assurance, compliance with safety certification, and transparent in-depth information about the company and their staff and processes on their website.
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Superannuation has grown to become the largest or second-largest asset for the majority of Australians.
The combined total of superannuation accounts in Australia means that this country has the third largest pension fund assets in the world (behind only USA and UK with their much larger populations).
It is a surprise to most Australians to learn that their retirement savings are held in trust, and a shock for them to discover that the terms of that trust frequently reserves discretionary powers to the trustee(s) of that trust.
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Estate planning requires some tough conversations and occasionally involves thinking about worst-case scenarios for you or your loved ones.
That’s why a lot of people treat it like the dentist, something that they know they ought to do but they keep putting it off.
Planning your estate and the more difficult aspects that come with it can be made even harder by dealing with a chronic illness, whether it’s your own or your spouse’s.
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