An Enduring Power of Attorney (POA) is a significant legal document necessary for empowering an ‘attorney’ to make decisions on your behalf. These decisions can be related, in some States just to financial issues, superannuation and asset management and in others extending to residence, health services and more.
estate planning
What happens when the last surviving trustee dies?
Mary being the sole individual trustee of her trust has recently passed away. Her daughter Sarah is her executor.
Hands off! Getting money back from a trustee
What happens when a trustee places the beneficiary’s money into their own account?
When you’ve seen one blended family – you’ve seen one blended family
Many lawyers talk about ‘blended families’ as if they are all pretty much the same. Like, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. But that is not the case at all.
SMSFs and binding death benefit nominations – where is your limit?
The superannuation environment may offer great tax efficiency in passing a member’s death benefits to their dependents, however there is a rider – the member will not have full control over how the benefits will be used by the beneficiary.
Controlling commutation of a child pension
Husband (H) and wife (W) are members of a self-managed superannuation fund, and as part of their estate planning, they want to direct the trustee of the fund to set up child pensions for their eligible children if either of H or W die early.
SMSF death benefits – the case for flexibility
We often want certainty. In a world where there is increasing conflict between family members after a parent dies, and a greater propensity for children to challenge a deceased person’s estate, anything that promotes greater certainty with regard to estate planning is usually seen as a good thing.
Getting your estate documents together
Jonathan See of Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers recently published an article on ‘Preparing for the Inevitable: Getting your estate documents together’. Below is an excerpt, the suggested list of documents clients can provide to Executor/s as part of their estate planning activities.