Genders and Partners

Treating Your Kids Differently in Your Will

Estate Planning, Inheritance Claims & Contested Estates, Wills, Wills and Estate Planning
Treating Your Kids Differently In Your Will

Family relationships can turn into nasty confrontations when it comes to administering a deceased estate and distributing assets. You may think that the way you have decided to distribute your estate in your Will is fair and even-handed, but your wishes may cause more trouble than they are worth when you die.

You should discuss your wishes with the experienced specialist estate planning team in Adelaide at Genders & Partners solicitors, so that you can find and prevent problems before they tear your family apart.

When you consider creating your Adelaide Will you may have good reasons for treating your children differently. If one of your children is in an abusive relationship with their partner, for instance, you probably will not want the abusive partner to get their hands on any of your assets. This can prove to be a difficult situation, and requires special care and attention. Special provision may have to be made to ensure that your assets are protected.

There are situations when one of your children may have lost his or her job due to no fault of their own and you may wish to allocate more of your assets to this person, knowing that it might be difficult for him or her to find employment. These sorts of decisions may seem right to you but they may seem unfair to another hardworking child who feels he or she has missed out on an equal entitlement to your estate.

Genders and Partners | Probate and Estate Administration - Lawyer Adelaide

Probate and Estate Administration Adelaide: Some Interesting Cases

Inheritance Claims & Contested Estates, Probate, Probate & Estate Administration

Estate Planning: Some Interesting Cases

Hornby v Cavenagh

Supreme Court of NSW

This was a claim under the New South Wales equivalent of the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act. The plaintiff was a niece of the deceased and sought to show that she was an eligible person to make a claim under the Act. To satisfy the requirement of an eligible person, the plaintiff had to show that there was some dependency on the deceased, and that she was a member of the deceased’s household.

Although the plaintiff had resided in the same household as the deceased for four years during the 1980s and was partly dependent on the deceased in this time, the relationship in the last 12 years of the deceased’s life was not close.

Genders and Partners

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: The Right Advice Can Make All the Difference

Estate Planning, Inheritance Claims & Contested Estates, Wills
Wills-and-Estate-Planning-Adelaide-The-Right -Advice-Can-Make-All-the-Difference

Many people mistakenly believe that having a simple legal Will covers all their needs, yet it’s only one piece of the legal protection puzzle. Without proper estate planning, you’re leaving your wealth and assets quite vulnerable and unprotected.

In some circumstances, it can mean the difference between having your wealth distributed the way you want, or having it given to those you don’t want anything to do with anymore. Or it may even be the difference between losing your home and keeping it, when unexpected events arise, like an accident that leaves you alive but incapacitated.

Even if you have a legal Will, that’s only one piece of the puzzle to protect you, your family and your assets. Without an integrated and up-to-date estate plan, you are gambling with your future.

Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide : The Disinheritance Debate

Death Benefits, Estate Planning, Inheritance Claims & Contested Estates, Planning for Disability and Incapacity, Wills
Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide : The Disinheritance Debate

60 years ago, a baby girl was given up for foster care by her birth mother due to shame about her illegitimate birth.  They did not live together after the first year of the baby’s life, and after the first 7 years shared no relationship at all other than biological.

Now the birth mother has died and left only $100 in her Will to that baby girl (now aged 60). The bulk of the estate was left to two other daughters. The disinherited daughter successfully sued for a third of the estate.

People always say it’s not about the money. But when someone is left out of an estate, they feel hurt, and their emotions take them on a roller-coaster ride.  Money and love get mixed-up.  Heart and head collide.  Grief can very quickly turn to anger, and people can easily relive childhood slights.

Highly charged issues of hurt, shame, pride, greed, love, unfairness, resentment, anger, prejudice and entitlement take over from logical thought.

In my legal practice I have heard hundreds of reasons for excluding family from inheritance.  Older generations were brought up to have different degrees of tolerance for unwed mothers, couples living-together and same-sex relationships.  The rising numbers of step-children provide real challenges to family harmony, and in many cultures it is considered acceptable to leave the bulk of the estate to male children.