Estate Planning

We first take the time to understand your circumstances.  Without understanding your situation, who is to know whether your wishes can actually be realised?  Through a proper understanding of your situation, we provide reliable advice and options to achieve the outcomes you are seeking.

We also visit you at your home, or elsewhere if it suits, for your privacy and convenience.  This lets us have a relaxed conversation about your plans without you worrying about a parking fine, or forgetting any important documents because you left them at home.  

We prepare wills, a cornerstone of most estate plans.  Simple or complicated, we draft wills to suit.

You can take comfort that a will prepared by us will be more than just properly written, it will also be properly considered.  You get the benefit of our experience in dealing with deceased estates so common problems arising from wills when they come into effect are contemplated and dealt with.

We also prepare wills incorporating testamentary discretionary trusts (aka testamentary trusts).   These are particularly suited for managing taxation and protecting inheritances from the beneficiaries' risks. 

A power of attorney put simply is an arrangement where someone appoints one or more other people to make decisions on their behalf in certain situations.  There are various ways a power of attorney can be produced.  While an enduring power of attorney is most common, other types may be more appropriate for your situation and we will raise these with you where relevant.

Regardless of what type of power of attorney you may make, we take the time to ensure it will be fit for its purpose.  Remember, it is an arrangement where you are giving others the power to make decisions that affect you!  We don't view powers of attorney as an afterthought or sideshow to your other estate planning arrangements.  We take them seriously because too often we see the consequences of lazily prepared powers of attorney.

For many people, superannuation is the largest item by value that they may leave.  Often, there is little or no consideration of how to properly distribute it.  The Superannuation Complaints Tribunal, courts and now AFCA are littered with disputes over the distribution of superannuation death benefits that could have been avoided.  Ineffective and misunderstood directions to superannuation funds as to who is receive superannuation are a common cause.  There are other causes of disputes also, before considering the number of instances rarely heard about where additional tax is charged that could have been avoided.

We can help you, and those you leave behind, avoid these problems.

If anything else requires attention, we will raise it with you, provide advice on your options and prepare any related documents.  For example:

• loan agreements may be prepared so the presence of loans made are properly recorded.
• changing ownership structures to ensure estate plans are not frustrated by ownership structures that don't suit the plan.

We could go on with more examples.  Rather than overwhelm you, be assured we will bring any other relevant items to your attention so you can decide how to approach the issue.