Safe guarding your assets

We will do our utmost to help you see estate plan­ning not as a tedious chore, but as a pos­i­tive step to take con­trol of your finan­cial affairs. We’re con­vinced that no one real­ly wants to pay more tax than they need to, or to have their fam­i­ly sub­ject­ed to delays or dis­putes over the dis­tri­b­u­tion of their estate. Your Will is one part of the estate plan­ning equa­tion. Con­sid­er­a­tion also needs to be giv­en to non-estate wealth, such as trusts, super­an­nu­a­tion, advance­ments and oth­er ben­e­fits received from out­side of the estate. Whether your estate plan­ning needs are sim­ple or com­plex, we can help.

Exper­tise

• Sim­ple and com­plex wills
• Pow­ers of attorney
• Appoint­ment of endur­ing guardian
• Advance care direc­tives (liv­ing wills)
• Tes­ta­men­tary trusts
• Cap­i­tal pro­tect­ed trusts
• Super­an­nu­a­tion advice includ­ing self-man­aged super­an­nu­a­tion funds
• Advis­ing on appli­ca­tions to the Super­an­nu­a­tion Com­plaints Tribunal
• Busi­ness suc­ces­sion plans
• Fam­i­ly constitutions
• Pro­tect­ing the wealth of high net worth clients
• Estate plan­ning for de fac­to and same sex couples
• Draft­ing and advis­ing on spe­cial dis­abil­i­ty trusts
• Trusts and life estates includ­ing remain­der­men entitlements
• Draft­ing and nego­ti­at­ing deeds of fam­i­ly arrangement
• Gifts and char­i­ta­ble foundations
• Unequal dis­tri­b­u­tion of assets in blend­ed families
• Quar­an­ti­ning assets from the rela­tion­ship prop­er­ty pool
• Admin­is­tra­tion of deceased estates
• Bank­rupt estates
• Inter­na­tion­al wills and estates
• Rec­ti­fy­ing and con­test­ing wills
• Appli­ca­tions for grants of pro­bate, let­ters of admin­is­tra­tion and reseal­ing of for­eign grants
• Advis­ing on appli­ca­tions for statu­to­ry wills
• Act­ing for plain­tiffs and defen­dants in con­test­ed fam­i­ly pro­vi­sion claims
• Advis­ing, ini­ti­at­ing claims and appear­ing in cas­es of tes­ta­men­tary capac­i­ty and undue influence
• Infor­mal wills
• Guardian­ship Tri­bunal work and pro­tect­ed estates, includ­ing claims for com­mis­sion, assist­ing and advis­ing on the fil­ing of accounts
• Advis­ing on the tran­si­tion from execu­tor to trustee and advis­ing on long term trust estates
• Advis­ing on mat­ters relat­ing to breach of fidu­cia­ry duty in rela­tion to pow­ers of attorney
• Rep­re­sent­ing estates of both sig­nif­i­cant and mod­est value
• Advis­ing char­i­ta­ble insti­tu­tions with regard to their lega­cies, bal­anc­ing com­pet­ing ben­e­fi­cial and fam­i­ly pro­vi­sion claims

Estate plan­ning

Everyone’s sit­u­a­tion is dif­fer­ent, so we know that estate plan­ning needs to be tai­lored to your indi­vid­ual cir­cum­stances. Per­haps your goal is to ensure that your estate plan max­imis­es your access to gov­ern­ment ben­e­fits. Or your top pri­or­i­ty may be to cre­ate struc­tures to pro­tect dis­abled or vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­ly mem­bers. Maybe you’re anx­ious to ensure that your assets are passed down as you intend to your own chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, rather than being dis­trib­uted to peo­ple with a com­pet­ing inter­est, like ex-part­ners and stepchil­dren. You might have a need to quar­an­tine par­tic­u­lar assets from the rela­tion­ship prop­er­ty pool. Or maybe you sim­ply want to make sure that you and your fam­i­ly don’t pay any more tax than you have to.

Estate lit­i­ga­tion

We firm­ly believe that lit­i­ga­tion is the last resort, not the first option. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some­times lit­i­ga­tion can be unavoid­able. As a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary law firm, we can offer you a big advan­tage if you ever need our help with an estate lit­i­ga­tion mat­ter. We under­stand the inter­re­la­tion between estate lit­i­ga­tion and oth­er areas of law which could have a bear­ing on your case, includ­ing fam­i­ly law, prop­er­ty law, busi­ness law, com­mer­cial law and insol­ven­cy. The fact that we have great peo­ple work­ing in all these areas means that we can quick­ly involve oth­er experts in your case if we need to.