Getting your affairs in order – what is an appointment of Enduring Guardian
An Enduring Guardian is the person you appoint to make personal, health or lifestyle decisions on your behalf should you lose the capacity to make them for yourself. When you appoint an Enduring Guardian, you choose the decision-making powers your Enduring Guardian will have. For example, you can authorise your Enduring Guardian to decide where […]
Estate Executors – Know your tax obligations
Agreeing to be executor of an estate means accepting obligations to the tax office. As the executor, you are answerable to the taxpayer for all of the estate's income and take over the deceased’s responsibilities for launching tax returns. Until the estate’s assets and income have been fully distributed, you will have to work out […]
Trusts – Losing out on land tax threshold
Who pays land tax? If you own, or jointly own, any property in NSW that is not your principal place of residence (your home) and the total taxable value of your land exceeds the land tax threshold, then you may need to pay land tax. How is land tax calculated? If your total land value […]
Your will – where is it?
Where should you keep your will? Keep your will in a safe place. It is preferable not to keep the will yourself in case it is mislaid. If the will is mislaid, it may be presumed to have been revoked. Solicitors hold wills on behalf of clients, usually at no charge. You should keep a copy […]
Planning ahead – what is an Enduring Guardian?
An Enduring Guardian is someone you appoint, at a time when you have capacity, to make personal, health or lifestyle decisions on your behalf should you lose the capacity to make them for yourself. When you appoint an Enduring Guardian, you should choose which decision-making powers you want your Enduring Guardian to have. For example, you […]
Homemade wills – when the judge decides
A will prepared without legal advice may not express the deceased's intentions. There are many cases looking at ‘homemade’ or ‘DIY’ wills. In one case, the Courts had to interpret a homemade will for an estate with a gross value of about $3.6 million. The deceased had died in 2006, aged 83. He had seven […]
Planning ahead – What is a Power of Attorney?
A Power of Attorney is a document you can sign to appoint another person (your attorney) to act for you in relation to financial affairs. The document says what the attorney is authorised to do, and this can be as narrow and specific, or as general, as you wish. Any lawful action taken by the […]
Tax Efficient or Efficiently Taxed? The Hidden Questions that Show We Might Be Too Trusting in Trusts
When establishing a testamentary trust or seeking estate planning guidance, the goal is to conserve and grow assets. Specifically, we want an instrument that will provide the flexibility to distribute assets and income to our dependants and to capitalise on tax benefits after death. But are trusts always suitable? The recent decision of Soo v […]
Change of Trustee Concession Rules
When the trustee of your trust retires, or you appoint a new trustee, you usually only pay nominal stamp duty of $50. The Chief Commission of Stamp Duties looks at the transfer of property carefully to check that the transfer is not really giving someone new the benefit of the property. The old rules required […]
You Can’t Pick Your Family, But They Can Claim Your Estate
An ‘eligible person’ can make a claim on your estate if you did not make adequate provision for that person. An eligible person includes a spouse, a former spouse, a child, a person that the deceased was living with or are in a close personal relationship with, or a person who was at a time […]