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9th Mar, 2009Estate Planning - the time to act is now!
by Noel Duffy, Partner, Mullins Lawyers
With the current economic climate and flow on uncertainty, now more than ever, you need to be considering your estate planning to ensure that your hard earned assets are protected for your family.
Noel Duffy, partner at Mullins Lawyers will, over a series of articles, consider and review the various areas that make up the often misunderstood concept of estate planning.
Why bother?
Recently published Federal Government figures estimated that 60% of Australians do not have wills. In my experience, the figure is probably closer to 80%!
Although you may not consider your estate to be large enough to warrant having a will, your circumstances may change overnight. You may receive an unexpected benefit under another person’s will, a windfall gain or significant death benefits from your own, an employer’s or a third parties’ insurance policy. Any of these could result in a substantial increase in the size of your estate.
You may consider a will unnecessary because you hold most of your property as joint tenants with say, your wife, and therefore upon your death she would automatically take the property. However, what if your wife unexpectedly dies leaving you as the surviving joint tenant or both of you die at the same time in an accident? What would happen to your estate then?
Another reason to have a will drawn now is that if you attempt to execute a will when you are incapacitated the will may be challenged and declared invalid. If you make a will whilst you have capacity it will be valid and binding even though your mental capacity may be affected by a later accident or disease.
By having a will it is you who nominates who will take charge of your affairs when you die rather than having someone you did not choose (and may not want) imposed upon your estate and surviving family.
Most importantly, unless you make a will your estate may be distributed in an arbitrary manner in accordance with what are known as the Rules of Intestacy and not in accordance with your wishes. This can cause great distress to your family at an already very difficult time.
In the next article Noel will look at the consequences of dying without a valid will.
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