Estate planning for progressive illness

Estate planning for progressive illness

Wills and Estate Planning, Trusts & Guardianship
Estate planning for progressive illness

Estate planning is not solely about preparing a Will, and with progressive illnesses you need to think about estate planning as planning for the future stages of your disease as it progresses.

The life planning portion of estate planning can be very different for a person with a progressive illness than a person without.

Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis, Macular Degeneration: there are dozens of illnesses that are progressive and (so far) incurable. They require special care from an estate planning perspective.

Strange but true recent Wills and estates news

Strange but true – recent wills and estates news

Wills and Estate Planning, Trusts & Guardianship
Strange but true recent Wills and estates news

Here’s a quick roundup of some interesting news items from the world of Wills and estates.

Hoist on his own petard? Father who denied paternity is excluded from dead child’s estate

A UK Court has decided that the substantial estate of a mentally disabled child who died without a Will should be distributed to his mother and his foster family.

The court excluded the child’s biological father from inheriting a share because he had denied paternity and played no part in the child’s life.

Challenges to a Will or Estate in South Australia

Challenges to a Will or Estate in South Australia

Wills, Inheritance Claims & Contested Estates, Wills and Estate Planning
Challenges to a Will or Estate in South Australia

“You never know anybody until you’ve shared an inheritance with them”

Challenges to Wills are far less common than challenges to estates. A Will can be contested or challenged when it is alleged that :

The Will was executed under undue influence from others;

The Will was executed when the testator lacked capacity to understand what he/she was doing. This is increasingly common due to the rise of dementia in our ageing population;

poor mans will podcast by rod genders

The Poor Man’s Will Dangers of Joint Ownership in Estate Planning

Wills and Estate Planning, Trusts & Guardianship
The Poor Mans Will Dangers of Joint Ownership in Estate Planning

Joint accounts with other people are a common method for ageing persons seeking help with money management, but this can cause problems.

What is Joint Tenancy

Joint Tenancy is used often by couples as a means of owning shared assets. There are some good reasons to do this, but there are also some drawbacks.

Joint accounts are often referred to as a “poor man’s Will” because they allow an individual to give assets to another upon death without going through the probate process. Some people have the perception from hearing horror stories that probate will consume the entire estate.

Why You Need a Will and What it Does

Why You Need a Will and What it Does

Wills and Estate Planning
Why You Need a Will and What it Does

Your ‘Will’ is a legal document that tells the world what you want to happen to your estate after you’re gone.

Your ‘estate’ is everything you own or control. It can include real estate, bank accounts, investments, shares, insurances, superannuation, vehicles, personal possessions and all manner of other assets.

It can also include intangible assets like goodwill, royalties, intellectual property and various legal rights.

World Alzheimer's Month | Genders and Partners

World Alzheimer’s Month

Wills and Estate Planning, Trusts & Guardianship
World Alzheimer's Month | Genders and Partners

Next week marks the beginning of World Alzheimer’s Month and Dementia Awareness Month. Without a medical breakthrough, the number of people with dementia in Australia is expected to increase to 536,164 by 2025 and to 1,100,890 by 2056.

World Alzheimer’s Day is on 21 September. Here at Genders and Partners, we will be honouring our clients and their caregivers who are battling Alzheimer’s and Dementia by posting on social media in order to spread awareness and start conversations about how to make life easier for those battling through these devastating diseases.

caring for parents and kids the sandwich generation is suffering

Caring for parents and kids – the “sandwich” generation is suffering

Wills and Estate Planning, Trusts & Guardianship
caring for parents and kids the sandwich generation is suffering

Most Australians aren’t planning for their own long-term care. This is creating a major problem for the next generation, who still have their own kids to look after.

This mirrors what is happening in other western economies such as UK , Canada and USA.

Rising costs and fluctuating economic and health care are the new realities, so more than ever it is important to be proactive before a long-term event happens, to help ensure that you can still take care of your own needs, especially if you are caring for someone else’s well-being.

More Weird Probate Issues

Probate and Deceased Estates, Wills and Estate Planning
weird probate Issues

Making a Will is serious business. It sets out your final wishes, determines who benefits from your estate, and protects the people you love. Yet the historical record is full of testators who approached the exercise with, shall we say, considerable imagination. This article continues our popular series on extraordinary probate cases drawn from estate law history.
We offer these not merely for entertainment, but because each case teaches a valuable lesson about what can go wrong when an estate plan is ill-conceived, ambiguously expressed, or legally deficient.