We were instructed to seek letters of administration in favour of two sisters of a lady who died about a year ago now, leaving no Will. The deceased left behind a husband, but no kids, so her estate is shared roughly equally between her husband and her siblings. Our clients were happy for the husband to […]
We’ve been preparing a few wills of late. One set of clauses we are including deal with superannuation proceeds that are paid into the estate, which gives more flexibility to ensure they go to the intended persons. In one instance, we ensured minimal tax by splitting the sum of the Super Proceeds and the Residuary
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This court case illustrates why these sorts of family provision matters should settle, particularly for a small estate. The first 132 paragraphs deal with the facts. From that, the Judge concluded that adequate provision had not been made for the reasons given in paragraphs 133 to 142. Note that the test is not limited to
The results of a poll that I looked at last night estimated that that 55% of the adults in Western Australia have no Will, or are not sure if they have a Will. Of those adults without a Will, only about 9% will have one by the time they pass away, leaving half of the
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We have been finalising wills for a couple with a large combined estate, however, the wife will not have much in her estate if she pre-deceases her husband, because most of her assets are in super. We have worded her will such that, if her husband survives her, even by 5 minutes, all of her
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I went to a 4 hour seminar on Family Provision actions on Tuesday, in which relatives of the deceased claim to have special need that was not adequately provided for by the deceased. It covered recent decisions, superannuation and life insurance implications, preparation for hearings and arguments about equitable estoppel and constructive and resulting trusts
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This week Michael met with an accountant to receive some instructions to apply for probate on a Will that we drafted about 10 years ago. There is also a rather informal codicil which the accountant had drafted for the client, which appears to be valid, despite being in the form of a letter and not
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I was reading a recent case yesterday about a lady whose husband passed away with no will, a small estate, $500k in super and no binding death benefit nomination. She applied for letters of administration, but she also asked the super fund to pay all of the super to herself. Unfortunately, this put her in
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I saw an executor of an estate yesterday. He was doing his probate application himself. He received a requisition from the Probate Registry of the Supreme Court because the Will stated that “the documents in a folder entitled Will on the C Drive of my computer form part of my Will”. In that directory were
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Irene and Jarred were busy over the last couple of days taking instructions from clients and preparing wills as part of a fund-raiser for the Red Cross. We are also working on a couple of not-very-straight forward probate applications. One is for a gentleman who was from Lithuania who died leaving no family in Australia.