Wills and Estate Planning Archives

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Estate Planning After Relationship Breakdown

Estate Planning, Wills, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 6, 2013

If you are about to separate from your spouse or partner, but your current Will, Trust or Advance Directives still give him or her control over your assets and your medical decisions, it’s urgent that you have all of your estate planning documents re-created now.

No matter how old you are or whether you have kids, it’s important to consult a lawyer who specialises in estate planning to make sure you have an updated estate plan for your new life once the dust has settled.

If you are married, remember that in all Australian states the law considers you to still be legally married until your divorce becomes final, and this cannot happen until at least 12 months after separation. If anything happens to you before that divorce Decree-Absolute is issued, your estranged spouse will retain the power to make decisions over those aspects of your life, if that is what your estate planning documents permit. Remember also, that marriage will generally revoke and invalidate an earlier Will, however Divorce may not have the opposite effect. If you have separated, but haven’t gotten around to making a new Will and advance directives (such as powers of attorney), you definitely need to deal with these now.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Don’t Make These Common Mistakes with your Discretionary Family Trust

Estate Planning, Trusts, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 6, 2013

Discretionary trusts (often called family trusts) are very powerful planning tools you can use for all kinds of purposes. Trusts can simplify & minimise or even avoid probate, protect your beneficiaries from creditors or divorcing spouses and

Don’t Make These Common Mistakes with your Discretionary Family Trust

can provide for education for grandchildren or your favourite charities.

When a trust is part of your overall comprehensive estate plan, you should try to avoid these common trust mistakes:

Mistake 1: Failing to title assets in the name of your trust

If you have not put your assets into your trust, also called “funding” your trust, you have lost some of the benefits of your trust.

Any assets that are in your own name at the time of your death will probably need to be probated. However, any assets that are titled in the name of your trust at the time of your death will avoid probate and usually result in lower after-death administration costs.

In order to receive the protection and benefits capable of being provided by the trust, generally (except for superannuation funds and certain annuities) most of your assets would need to be transferred into your trust during your lifetime.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Create an Integrated Estate Plan That Works

Estate Planning, Wills, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 6, 2013

There are lots of reasons why estate plans fail, including poor documents, failure to update them, careless titling of assets, and forgetting to nominate or update beneficiary designations.

Create an Integrated Estate Plan That Works

Then there are the situational problems, where there is a failure to properly address family issues and dynamics.

So how do you define an estate plan that will work for you and your family when it’s really needed?

Let’s take a quick look at some of the features I would ideally wish to see in an integrated estate plan:

It should give you access and control over your property while you are alive and well. This won’t be the case if your assets are jointly titled with someone other than your spouse or if you fail to follow through on the terms of a property settlement agreement after a divorce.

Intestacy: How Property is Distributed without a Will

Estate Planning, Wills, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 6, 2013

When a person dies without a Will, this is known as dying “intestate”. This might happen because their death occurs before they even considered writing a Will. Some people feel that they don’t need a Will because they don’t have a substantial estate. A person might write a Will, only to have a Court declare it invalid after they die, which has the same legal effect as dying without a Will at all.

When a person dies without a Will, the law has to find a way to distribute that person’s property. In some parts of the world, the government will take most or all of the deceased’s estate, but in most western countries there is a strong preference in the law to keep property in the family of the deceased, generally leaving it to the closest living relatives.

The exact order of priorities among relatives differs from state to state in Australia, but the goals of intestacy law (keeping property in the family) are broadly the same, so the schemes in each State are usually quite similar.

Often the surviving spouse will receive the first “piece” of the deceased’s estate. The value of this piece varies over time. For example, in South Australia for many years the surviving spouse in an intestacy would receive the first $10,000 plus a percentage of the remaining estate. In February 2009, the law in South Australia was changed to increase this to $100,000 plus a percentage of the remaining estate.

How to Live Well in Retirement

Estate Planning, Pensions and Retirement Planning, Wills, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 6, 2013

Are you nervous about the recent volatility in the markets, as you approach retirement age?

Everyone hopes for a comfortable retirement, but how many really plan for a long and fulfilling retirement? You know you should put money away for your retirement, but as that day approaches (particularly with world share markets and superannuation funds in crisis), which financial and investment strategies should you follow to help yourself enjoy the lifestyle you’ve envisioned?

You could literally spend decades in retirement. With advances in medicine and healthcare, it is actually becoming increasingly likely that Australians will live longer in retirement than they were in the workforce. Keep this type of longevity in mind when you create investment strategies for your retirement.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Financial Planning … one of the important elements of Estate Planning

Estate Planning, Wills, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 6, 2013

How much money will you need to meet your retirement goals? Have you allowed for share-market contractions, inflation, and unexpected emergencies? In the event of death or disability, will your family be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, or will everything you have worked-for be at risk? These are just a few of the many issues that need to be considered in a formal Financial Plan, which is one component of an integrated Estate Plan.

You should sketch out a “mud-map” of your goals, and the steps needed to achieve them. You also should put in place monitoring safeguards to check that your investments are performing up to expectations.

So how do you determine your financial goals and develop a plan to reach them?

Most people need help to do this, and this is why there is a whole industry of people and companies fighting for your business, to help you develop and implement your financial plan. Just look in the Yellow Pages under Financial Planners, and you’ll see dozens of listings.

All banks & insurers, and most accountants, have Financial Planners on staff. Many of them will have a separate financial planning division. There are also lots of specialist financial planners in their own businesses. So who should you choose to help you with your financial plan?

Since March 2004 Australians have enjoyed the protection of the Financial Services Reform Act, which imposed high standards designed to protect you whenever you deal with banks, building societies, credit unions, insurance companies, superannuation and managed funds or with stockbrokers, financial planners and insurance brokers.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Comfort = Complacency?

Estate Planning, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders August 2, 2013

As Baby Boomers start to keel-over, we are about to witness the greatest “transfer of wealth” ever in Australia’s history. This segment of society is a BIG chunk of our national population, and it represents a massive percentage of our private net-worth as a nation.

While this is happening, the Gen-X and Gen-Y youngsters are growing-up fast, and realising for the first time that bull-markets don’t last forever. They now have new burdens of responsibilities to their own kids coming through behind them. They are suddenly recognising that life doesn’t owe them, and they’ll have to work for what they want. It will be interesting to see how they cope. They’ve been raised in very good times, when the equity in our homes unlocked a never-ending orgy of consumerism. Who needed to save, when debt was so much easier, and capital gains would take care of that. Why delay gratification, when the latest big-screen home-theatre can be installed today, with payments over the next 10 years?

But now we are formally acknowledged to be in a debt-fuelled recession. Our economy has been very kind to us for a long time, and people have become used to a certain level of comfort and security – but that is no longer guaranteed.

So how will you look after yourself and your family in these challenging times? Have you created a fully-integrated estate plan, and reviewed it regularly? Have you taken the steps necessary to preserve your wealth for your old-age, and to pass your assets onto the people you care about, or are you simply hoping to live forever?

Death & taxes, illness & share-market corrections may be unavoidable … but they don’t have to ruin your family or your business. Make the effort to protect the people you really care about. Call Genders & Partners for integrated estate planning in Adelaide and all over South Australia. And do it NOW … before it is too late.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: 9 Meals from Anarchy

Estate Planning, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders July 11, 2013

… estate planning and the need to be prepared…

Authors, politicians, revolutionaries, psychologists and philosophers have long proclaimed that civilisation is only 3 days – or 9 meals – away from anarchy, barbarism and revolution.

Think about it – no food on supermarket shelves – how long before law and order started to break down, and suburban streets descend into chaos and mob-rule?

It’s been a long time since any of us in Australia were genuinely hungry. I mean starving from lack of available food, not the latest Hollywood diet.

But imagine a sudden loss of electrical power, like Auckland experienced in 1998. That’s only 15 years ago, in a modern first world country. There it took five weeks to restore that power supply, and about 60,000 people had to relocate to other New Zealand cities, or even to Australia.

So imagine your whole state without power for weeks. No electric light or refrigeration. No internet, television, radio or phones. No banking or EFTPOS. The electric pumps at the service stations shutdown oil and petrol supplies, so no trucks delivering food.

No electrical pumps means eventually no running water.

Asset Protection – Be Smart, Be Safe

Asset Protection, Business Succession Planning, Trusts, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders July 11, 2013

Protecting your assets is one of the most important financial decisions you will ever make. Asset protection is a valuable and important part of a modern integrated estate plan. No matter how many assets you have, you should make an effort to protect them, but try to avoid these common mistakes:

1. Lack of Knowledge

Lots of people misunderstand how asset protection works. Some people believe asset protection makes them “judgment proof.” Even if your assets are protected, you may still cop an adverse court judgment. In some cases, efforts you have made to protect your assets can be overturned. This is why it is important to work with a professional when creating your protection plan.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming asset protection and estate planning are the same thing. Asset protection is part of any strong estate plan but they are not the same thing. Some trusts do nothing to protect you from creditors, and Family Court issues can interfere with the best-laid plans.

Don’t make the mistake of confusing bankruptcy law and asset protection law. In a state like South Australia, newer bankruptcy laws do not prevent the “clawing back” of assets you may have tried to unsuccessfully protect. You have less protection in bankruptcy court, so filing for bankruptcy should be used as a last resort.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Expectation Management

Estate Planning, Trusts, Wills, Wills and Estate PlanningBy Rod Genders July 11, 2013

As Baby Boomers, we are leaving the workforce in record numbers.

This leads to some uncomfortable predictions about the lifestyle we can expect in retirement, and what the Government will do to help us.

In Australia, we have not felt the impact of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) as quickly or as hard as many other countries (like Greece or Ireland).

But recently, the International Monetary Fund said “The global economy is in a dangerous new phase”, so it is natural to be concerned about our own futures – especially if our most productive years are behind us. It is not easy to recover from a financial reversal when our ability to earn is diminishing with age.

With market volatility in recent months reaching levels not seen since the GFC, it is worth looking at the key factors affecting our economy in this new financial climate.

Populations in most developed countries like Australia are ageing. As people retire, incomes fall and spending patterns must be adjusted downwards. In some countries, economic growth has been extremely low and price deflation has occurred. An ageing population lowers the number of citizens available to work and requires more government assistance in terms of pensions, health care services and other benefits.

Category Archives: Wills and Estate Planning

Mistake 1: Failing to title assets in the name of your trust

1. Lack of Knowledge