I met a very fit and healthy couple in their 80’s to discuss some estate planning.
They showed me their current Wills, which they had prepared themselves.
There were 2 major issues. They meant to leave everything to each other, and then the survivor was to make specific gifts, but the Wills were worded such that they each made the specific gifts before giving the residue to each other, which resulted in the intended beneficiaries getting the gifts twice.
Further, neither estate was enough to satisfy the gifts unless their superannuation was paid into their estate, which may not have happened and the $450k in assets in their family trust will not be part of their estate.
We are now going to prepare new will, enduring powers of attorney and guardianship, binding death benefit nominations, and were considering the equivalent of a Will for the family trust, effected with a trustee resolution to vest the trust assets to various beneficiaries on the death of the survivor. Instead we decided to have a non-binding direction to the Executors in the Will, requiring that to occur, in as tax-effective a manner as is reasonably possible at the time, for example. distributing the capital gains on the sale of the shares in the trust to charities which do not pay any tax on those capital gains.