Articles | Genders and Partners

Elder financial abuse in South Australia — protecting older Australians from financial exploitation

Elder Financial Abuse: How to Protect Yourself and Those You Love

Financial abuse of older Australians is more prevalent than most people realise, and its consequences can be devastating. An elderly person who has spent a lifetime accumulating assets may find those assets stripped away through manipulation, deception, or outright theft — often by someone they trusted completely. Understanding what elder financial abuse looks like, how it happens, and what the law provides by way of protection is a vital first step for every family.

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Contesting a Will in South Australia: What You Need to Know

Few events test the fabric of a family more severely than a dispute over a deceased person’s estate. Whether it arises from surprise, grievance, or a genuine sense of injustice, a challenge to a Will can be emotionally exhausting and financially costly. Yet the law recognises that there are circumstances in which such challenges are well-founded, and South Australia’s succession legislation provides clear pathways for eligible persons who believe they have been inadequately provided for or that a Will does not reflect the testator’s genuine intentions.

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dementia will soon become australias leading cause of death

What Is Testamentary Capacity?

Older couple considering their future plans

Medical science is keeping Australians alive longer than ever before. As the population ages, questions about mental capacity and the validity of estate planning documents are becoming more important — and more frequently litigated. At the centre of these questions is the legal concept of testamentary capacity: the standard a person must meet to make a valid Will.

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Estate Planning for Problem Children

For most parents, providing for their children is a fundamental motivation for estate planning. Yet for a growing number of families, the question of how to provide for an adult child is far from straightforward. When a child has a gambling problem, a substance dependency, an unsuitable or unstable relationship, or simply a demonstrated inability to manage money, leaving them an unconditional inheritance may do more harm than good.
This article addresses the estate planning options available to South Australian Will-makers who are concerned about leaving assets to vulnerable or financially unreliable adult children, under the Succession Act 2023 (SA) and related legislation.

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Accommodation After Death: Providing a Home for Loved Ones Through Your Will

For many South Australians, the family home is the most valuable asset in their estate. It is also deeply personal – associated with decades of memory and, in many cases, currently occupied by a surviving spouse, a dependent child, an elderly parent, or another family member who has nowhere else to go. The prospect of that person being displaced shortly after the Will-maker’s death, because the home must be sold or transferred to satisfy the terms of the Will, is a genuine source of anxiety for many people making estate planning decisions.

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The 7 Deadly Sins of DIY Wills

Trying to DIY the most important legal document in your life is a bad idea. This is a specialised area of law, and when you don’t know what you’re doing, it is very easy to make critical errors trying to do this yourself. Any mistakes you make won’t become apparent until you die, and it’s too late for you to fix them, so it will be your family who has the stress and cost of dealing with it all.

Here are 7 of the most common errors people make with DIY Wills:

No Advice. While DIY Will-kits and online services might provide you with a document that looks like a Will, appearances can be deceptive. What you are paying a lawyer for is the advice they provide you along with the Will. It is illegal for anyone other than a licensed lawyer to provide legal advice for a fee, whether that means answering questions or making planning suggestions for how to accomplish goals. So the companies that offer DIY Wills or kits or online documents are always careful to tell you that they are not giving you legal advice, and they ALWAYS recommend that you consult a lawyer if you have questions.

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Expectation Management in Estate Planning

Of the many aspects of estate planning that require careful attention,

one of the least discussed – and arguably the most emotionally charged – is the management of beneficiaries’ expectations. People often assume, sometimes with great confidence, that they know what a relative intends to leave them. When the Will reveals something different, the consequences can range from family tension to costly litigation.
Effective expectation management is not merely a matter of interpersonal diplomacy. It is an integral part of sound estate planning that can spare families years of grief and legal expense.

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Estate Planning Disasters of the Rich and Famous

There is a tempting assumption that estate planning is something only the wealthy need to worry about, or conversely, that wealth itself ensures a smooth transfer of assets on death. Celebrity estate planning disasters emphatically disprove both propositions. The rich and famous are as capable of catastrophic estate planning failures as anyone else – and because their assets and family disputes tend to be played out in public, their mistakes offer instructive lessons for us all.
The following cases illustrate common estate planning failures and the principles that might have prevented them. All information in this article relates to Australian law under the Succession Act 2023 (SA) and its Commonwealth and common law equivalents.

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Who and how to appoint an Executor in your Will in South Australia

Choosing who will take on the role of Executor of your Will can sometimes be challenging.

Most Will-makers (aka ‘Testators’) appoint a trusted friend or family member as their executor. This person will end up playing a very important role, with a lot of responsibility.

If they instruct an experienced lawyer who specialises in Wills and Estates, then most of the ‘heavy-lifting’ will be done for them by the lawyer.

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When Family Trusts Turn Toxic: Trustee Duties, Distribution Disasters, and Removal Remedies

The family trust is one of the most elegant instruments in the Australian estate-planning toolkit. Flexible, tax-efficient, and capable of sheltering assets across generations, it has become a cornerstone of how families structure their wealth. According to some estimates, there are well over 800,000 discretionary trusts operating in Australia — the vast majority of them family vehicles, established with the best of intentions.

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