Using this checklist when considering new Wills should help highlight why you need a Modern Estate Planning Will with testamentary trusts.

Even if you have a current two or three page Will, answering “Yes” to any of these questions means you should contact RetireLaw.

Otherwise:

• Your wishes will not be achieved and your assets will end up in the wrong hands;
• Your beneficiaries will pay unnecessarily high levels of income/capital gains taxes;
• Your beneficiaries may lose HALF their inheritance if they divorce;
• Your beneficiaries could lose ALL their inheritance to creditors; and
• Your Will is more likely to be challenged in Court.

Have any of the following occurred recently:	Y/	N
Have you married?
If “Yes”, are there children from prior relationships?
Have you set up an investment or retirement plan?
Have you taken out substantial life cover to protect your family?
Do you have a family trust or a self managed super fund?
Want to change your executor or how you leave your estate?

Do you want to ensure that your beneficiaries (usually your kids):	Y/	N
Enjoy protection of their inheritance from Family Law claims?
Obtain significant income tax savings?
Attract special tax concessions if under 18?
Achieve significant capital gains tax savings?
Enjoy protection of their inheritance from bankruptcy claims?

Are you concerned about:	Y/	N
The stability of a son’s or daughter’s marriage?
Seeing equality of distribution among beneficiaries?
Beneficiaries who are intellectually disabled?
Vulnerable beneficiaries i.e. addicts, spendthrifts or the naïve?

To avoid these outcomes listed above you need…

A Modern Estate Planning Will which deals specifically with life insurance proceeds, superannuation, guardianship of children, business assets and structures such as trusts and companies, matters almost never covered by “simple wills”. A Modern Estate Planning Will can also offer tax advantages and asset protection to your beneficiaries through employing discretionary testamentary trusts to shield inheritances from the impact of divorce, bankruptcy and other disabilities.

If it is your intention to leave your estate to more than one child, our Will gives your Executor power to ensure that all beneficiaries are treated equally. There is no guarantee, under a simple will, that this outcome will be achieved because some assets are not covered by such a will, including superannuation, life insurance proceeds, family trust interests etc.

While a simple will may “work”, in most cases it will almost certainly result in more costly and time consuming outcomes, with potentially unhappy and frustrated beneficiaries, particularly those who realise too late how differently the process might have been managed.

Estate or succession planning has been described by one Australian authority as involving the transfer of family resources from one generation to another in a manner that optimises the family’s overall financial position.

You really can’t afford to leave such an important process and outcome to chance!