Estate Planning Advice
Estate Planning is more than just having Wills & Power of Attorneys in place.
Estate Planning Advice
Estate Planning is more than just having Wills & Power of Attorneys in place.
Make sure your wishes are fulfilled.
Why plan for the end?
Effective estate planning results in the right assets going to the right people, at the right time, with minimal fuss, expense, and inconvenience.
Get your Estate Plan right.
Planning can remove unnecessary stress and financial hardship.
It’s important to ensure that the assets you have accumulated over your lifetime are left for those most important to you. Getting the planning right can help avoid adverse and unintended consequences such as:
• the wrong people receiving benefit or assets
• high fees and costs eroding the value of your gift
• delays in distributing your assets
• potential challenges by disgruntled beneficiary or others
• additional tax being incurred.
What is Estate Planning?
Estate Planning
Estate planning is the process of structuring your financial asset and personal affects so that your assets and personal possessions are distributed according to your wishes when you pass away.
Estate planning involves more than just creating a will, although a will is an important part of estate planning. Having a will alone may not necessarily deal with the effective distribution of your assets, which is why it’s important to consider your estate planning carefully to ensure it reflects your circumstances, wishes and needs.
Not just Wills
Most estate plans also include other matters relating to the end of life, including enduring powers of attorney, powers of enduring guardianship, medical treatment decision maker appointments and advanced care directives. Having these in place ensures that someone can make decisions for you, and according to your wishes if you are unable to make decisions for yourself.
When considering your estate planning needs, it’s also important to consider other tools and strategies including superannuation nominations, insurance, and other investment or wealth transfer vehicles. Having a structured plan in place, together with the appropriate estate planning tools, can help deliver an effective and efficient outcome.
Benefits of Estate Planning
Estate planning provides you with certainty and peace of mind, knowing that your affairs will be managed in accordance with your wishes when you pass away.
The benefits of having an effective plan include:
- providing for loved ones with special needs.
- ensuring your children’s or grandchildren’s inheritance has greater protection from creditors or any future relationship breakdown.
- managing complex family or personal relationships (for example multiple marriages, children from different marriages or vulnerable family members).
No matter what your estate planning needs are, it is important when deciding how to provide for your loved ones, to seek professional estate planning advice.
How we can help You.
Asset Ownership
Understanding the assets you own, their legal structure, and how they will be dealt with and distributed on your passing is important.
You will need to consider whether your assets are:
• owned by you as an individual
• owned jointly with another party (as joint tenants or tenants in common),
• held within a legal structure (such as a company or trust) where there is more than one person with an interest.
Assets that have your name only on the title or assets owned with another party as tenants in common are considered estate assets.
Non-Estate Assets are assets that do not form part of your estate and pass under a variety of other agreements and arrangements.
Non-estate assets generally include:
• assets owned as joint tenants
• assets held in a discretionary family trust where you are the trustee and/or beneficiary
• assets held in a private company in which you have an interest
• superannuation in either accumulation or pension phases, where payment is made to eligible dependents
• reversionary pensions or annuities
• insurance policies (including investment bonds) where any proceeds payable under the policy are not paid to your executor/estate, but for example, may be payable to a nominated beneficiary.
Wills
A will is the legal document that sets out how and to whom you would like your assets to be distributed to. It can also cover some other requests, such as nominating guardians for children who are minors at the time you die, as well as funeral and burial wishes.
A will can be used to make specific gifts to loved ones and charities and can also be used to establish one or more trusts to manage the transfer of your wealth to beneficiaries.
It’s important to correctly document your will to help mitigate potential legal challenges from disgruntled estate beneficiaries and other interested parties left out of the will, or someone just being unhappy and wanting to overturn elements of the will. This can cause costly, lengthy (and stressful) legal disputes.
Power Of Attorney
Power Of Attorney
Effective estate planning ensures that your wealth is distributed according to your wishes after you pass away. Have you considered what happens if you lose capacity and cannot make decisions before you die because of an accident or ill health?
A Power of Attorney is a legal document that enables you to authorise someone you trust to make decisions and sign documents on your behalf if you are not able to do so yourself.
There are different types of Powers of Attorney which can cover different circumstances. When establishing a Power of Attorney arrangement, you have the ability to determine when, for how long, or under what circumstances it comes into effect.
Superannuation
Investment Bonds
Power Of Attorney
Superannuation is a major investment for many Australians. It is important to consider your superannuation assets when formulating your estate planning strategy.
Superannuation does not automatically form part of an estate, i.e. it is not an estate asset, and therefore will not automatically be dealt with under your will. A superannuation fund’s rules set out how and to whom a superannuation death benefit payment can be paid. Any life insurance component of your superannuation will also form part of any death benefit payment made.
When considering how your superannuation will be dealt with on your death, you should also consider the terms of the superannuation fund’s trust deed, any trustee discretions that can be applied in determining the distribution of benefit and any tax implications when paying out a benefit to a beneficiary.
Investment Bonds
Investment Bonds
Investment Bonds
Investment bonds can be a tax-effective and convenient way to pass on your wealth to your dependents and others, with minimal fuss.
Investment bonds have features that can be used in conjunction with, or as an alternative to, conventional estate planning tools – such as a will, a testamentary trust (for future gifting and for making intergenerational wealth transfers), and superannuation.
Most investment bonds will provide the ability to transfer benefits on your passing to your nominated beneficiaries. In some cases, an investment bond may also provide an option to transfer ownership of the investment bond to another person on your passing.
Education Bonds
Investment Bonds
Investment Bonds
An Education Bond is a tax-effective investment product designed to help meet the cost of education, and can also be used for other purposes. It can be for yourself, but most people use an Education Bond to invest in the future of their children or grandchildren.
Offering all the features of an Investment Bond, an Education Bond also has special Education Tax Benefits, Estate Planning features and the discretion to appoint multiple Beneficiaries.
An Education Bond is an excellent way to ensure the money you set aside to invest for your loved ones will be passed on as you intended.
Funeral Bonds
Life Insurance
Life Insurance
Setting aside funds to pay for funeral expenses should be considered as part of any estate planning arrangement.
Providing for your funeral costs ahead of time provides peace of mind that money is available to fund the cost, while also removing the burden from your family.
There are several ways of funding funeral expenses, including the use of a funeral bond, a pre-paid funeral or taking out funeral insurance.
Life Insurance
Life Insurance
Life Insurance
You may want to consider taking out life insurance as part of your estate planning to provide a fi safety net for your family to meet future expenses (such as mortgage repayments) or to protect your interests in a business partnership.
How you hold your life insurance to provide for
your family will be different based on your personal circumstances and needs.
You will need to consider your needs and personal circumstances, including:
• the type of cover you need
• the level of cover required
• how tailored you require the insurance to be
• the tax impact of a life insurance payout, and
• how you would like to fund the insurance
premiums.
Estate Plan
Life Insurance
Estate Plan
Estate planning is a vital part of a holistic financial plan that ensures the shared goals of parents and children are met.
Effective estate planning can assist with:
• managing the interests of vulnerable beneficiaries
• ensuring support for your surviving partner and family
• protecting the inheritances of beneficiaries
• protecting your assets from third party claims
• establishing a means to manage capital for the benefit of current and future generations
• tax minimisation for the estate and beneficiaries.
Defining and writing down your Estate Plan is a powerful tool to make the best decisions for you and your family.