Wills Provide A Way

In an age of tricky family relationships, it pays to plan ahead to make sure your wealth is passed on to the right people.

- Vita Palestrant

When it comes to protecting your wealth and passing it on to those you love, often it’s not as straightforward as it seems. Speak to any family lawyer and they will provide countless examples of estate warfare. So what can you do to avoid this?

Estate planning experts say because each person’s circumstances are different, it’s important to have your will drafted by an expert lawyer.

“A lot of people think the document is the critical thing, but the reality is it’s the advice that is important,” says Anna Hacker, a wills and estate accredited specialist at Australian Unity. “If you have a will that doesn’t have the right advice, it won’t do what you want it to do.

“Instead of your beneficiaries getting an inheritance, your wealth may end up with some random person you’ve never met. This is increasingly the case with divorce and blended families being a fact of life.”

And the stakes are high, according to Peter Townsend, principal at Townsends Business and Corporate Lawyers. “We’re in the early stages of what has been called the greatest wealth transfer in history. Over the next 15 years in Australia, many billions of dollars of assets are going to be transferred through the estates of baby boomers who are shuffling off this mortal coil.”

He says the reality is that a poorly constructed will that doesn’t take advantage of tax benefits or overlooks super and insurance may be disadvantageous to beneficiaries, depriving them of tax savings and inheritance protection.

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