Category: Wills, Trusts & Estates

If you had said the word ’philanthropy‘ 20 years ago, most people would have looked at you with a quizzical look. Today this word has become as common as the word ’footy’.

An area that is typically challenging in the Wills & Estates space is where a person residing overseas or interstate dies leaving assets in Victoria.

As a new financial year ticks over, financial and strategic planning is common practice for businesses, but one overlooked and yet highly important action to take is the review of your personal Will and estate planning.

The value of formalising business owners’ arrangements
Shareholders’ and unitholders’ agreements are increasingly being implemented for companies or trusts that involve two or more arms’ length parties. There are very good reasons for this trend: such agreements help to guide decision making, establish governance procedures and stipulate mechanisms to resolve deadlocks.

In some cases, homemade Wills can cost the deceased’s estate considerable expense. We share with you just how defective a homemade Will can be and how risky it is for appointed executors to try to obtain probate of a homemade Will without legal assistance.

For super fund members there were a plethora of changes in May’s Budget announcement. Most changes apply from 1 July 2017 apart from the lifetime cap on non-concessional contributions of $500,000, which applies from Budget night (3 May 2016) and counts non-concessional contributions from 1 July 2007.

I own property in Australia, what do I need to do to protect my interests?

If you have recently purchased property in Australia, then it is imperative that you protect your new asset. The first thing most people do is take out insurance to protect against fire, theft and damage but what most people forget to do is protect their assets against government intervention during times of incapacity or on death.