Estate management on death

[Trippy]

Hi Guys,

I have been thinking lately about what would happen if I and my partner were to pass away While I would not personally have any further worries I am considering where our kids would be placed with our estate.

We have all the insurances (well in excess to pay out all debt) in place but no current will. We do have a will that is about 15 years out of date. The last will we had written would see that our kids get our estate but I am considering where they would be with winding up our estate. With a company (our business - debtors / creditors, work on hand to consider, sale of company assets, company wind up), family trust (share investments and cash bank account), SMSF (commercial properties with finance) and personal holdings (multiple bank accounts and shares) it is starting to get complicated. The older we get the more assets we accumulate and the bigger and more convoluted the whole show seems to become.

Even the passing of the primary brain (for lack of a better title) out of a husband / wife partnership may see the need to liquidate the portfolio. For instance one in the partnership makes all the financial decisions / investments and is across the portfolio, while the other half is clueless and would be unable to adequately administer / manage the portfolio. The brain passes away and the remaining spouse is literally unable or unwilling to effectively continue on.

Surely I am not Robinson Crusoe here. Anyone care to share how you have ensured your estate is correctly administered / wound up in the event of untimely death? How much detail do you go into? Is a written brief detailing all entities (structure overview, ABN's, investments held, financier’s details, bank account details, contact names and phone numbers....etc) warranted? What about account login details and passwords for bank accounts and share trading platforms? Passwords for PC's and accounting software? If both husband and wife pass away how do the kids (or applicable custodians) know if they have life insurance policies and who they are held with? Possibly you have multiple life insurance policies and they miss one? How would they go unravelling all the entities if they had no knowledge of the workings of each them or no idea that they even exist?

Alternatively, in some cases, it may be beneficial to continue to hold some income producing assets that are owned (for instance the assets in the trust or the SMSF)? Who decides what gets sold / wound up and what gets kept or left in situ....
How much say do you actualy have after you pass on how you want the estate to be run or continue to run?

Thanks.

 

[marg4000]

The only way to ensure your wishes are carried out is to have a valid, up to date will.

Otherwise government laws will come into play and the outcome may not be what you would have wanted.

Any solicitor will do up a will for you. We recently updated ours for around $100 each (fairly straightforward). Cheap for the peace of mind.
Marg

 

[Terry_w]

I am an estate planning solicitor - there are many many things to consider and these things will depend on your set up. For example discretionary trust assets cannot be left via you will. You will have to plan for the succession of your trust. If you do not then it could be uncle harry who could end up in control and he could possibly legally benefit himself to the exclusion of your children.

Very dangerous to have such an out of date will in place. You could consider revoking it now so that the intestacy laws apply and then quickly get a new will done (in case something happened before the new will was executed etc).

 

[fernfurn]

When you make the new will, and have another list of which personal type pieces go to whom, make sure e a c h of your children have a copy. I have known many cases where this will, and the list, just go missing, and the (new or old) spouse inherits the lot.

 

[Trippy]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I am booking in next week to start the process of getting this resolved