SMSF Succession Planning: Why Your Self-Managed Super Fund Needs Its Own Strategy

Estate Planning, Superannuation
SMSF succession planning in Australia

Self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) are one of the most powerful wealth-accumulation vehicles available to Australians, and for many families they represent the single largest asset outside the family home. Yet despite their significance, the succession planning dimensions of SMSFs are frequently neglected or poorly understood. A comprehensive estate plan that addresses your Will, enduring power of attorney, and advance care directive, but leaves your SMSF succession arrangements to chance, is incomplete in a way that can have serious and expensive consequences for your family.

Contesting a Will in South Australia

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

Wills and Estate Planning
Contesting a Will in South Australia

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.

who and how to appoint an executor in your will in south australia

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

Wills
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.

Family trust disputes in Australia

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

Family Trusts, Testamentary Trusts, Wills and Estate Planning
Family trust disputes in Australia

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.

What Happens When You Die Without a Will in South Australia

What Happens When You Die Without a Will in South Australia?

Estate Administration, Succession Law, Wills and Estate Planning
What Happens When You Die Without a Will in South Australia

Approximately half of all Australian adults do not have a Will. For some, this reflects a deliberate (if misguided) choice; for most, it is simply the result of procrastination — of assuming there is plenty of time, that it will not matter, or that the law will sort things out. In practice, dying without a Will — a state known as dying ‘intestate’ — can have significant and sometimes distressing consequences for the people left behind.

Superannuation death benefit nomination and estate planning in Australia

The Ticking Time Bomb in Your Estate Plan: Why Your Superannuation Death Benefit Nomination Matters More Than You Think

Superannuation, Wills, Wills and Estate Planning
Superannuation death benefit nomination and estate planning in Australia

For many Australians, superannuation is the largest single asset they will accumulate over a working lifetime. Yet despite its size, superannuation is also one of the most misunderstood assets from an estate planning perspective. The critical point — one that surprises many clients — is that your superannuation does not automatically pass according to your Will.

Protecting elderly Australians from predatory marriage and financial abuse through proactive estate planning

Predatory Marriage and Elder Abuse: Protecting Your Estate from Those Who Would Exploit Vulnerability

Elder Law, Wills, Wills and Estate Planning
Protecting elderly Australians from predatory marriage and financial abuse through proactive estate planning

Among the more distressing phenomena encountered in succession law practice is the marriage of convenience — sometimes called a predatory marriage — in which a person cultivates a relationship with an older or cognitively vulnerable individual for the purpose of securing an inheritance. The legal consequences for the victim’s family can be severe, and South Australian law has only recently moved to address them.

Blended family estate planning in South Australia — protecting partners and children from prior relationships

Blended Families and Estate Planning: Navigating the Competing Loyalties of Modern Life

Blended Families, Wills, Wills and Estate Planning

Australia’s rates of relationship breakdown and re-partnering mean that blended family structures — where one or both partners bring children from a prior relationship into a new household — are now a common feature of Australian life. Estate planning in a blended family is one of the most complex and emotionally charged challenges in succession…

Genders and Partners

Don’t Make These Common Mistakes with Your Discretionary Family Trust

Genders and Partners

Discretionary trusts (often called family trusts) are very powerful planning tools you can use for all kinds of purposes. Trusts can simplify & minimise or even avoid probate, protect your beneficiaries from creditors or divorcing spouses and

Don’t Make These Common Mistakes with your Discretionary Family Trust

can provide for education for grandchildren or your favourite charities.

When a trust is part of your overall comprehensive estate plan, you should try to avoid these common trust mistakes:

Mistake 1: Failing to title assets in the name of your trust

If you have not put your assets into your trust, also called “funding” your trust, you have lost some of the benefits of your trust.

Any assets that are in your own name at the time of your death will probably need to be probated. However, any assets that are titled in the name of your trust at the time of your death will avoid probate and usually result in lower after-death administration costs.

In order to receive the protection and benefits capable of being provided by the trust, generally (except for superannuation funds and certain annuities) most of your assets would need to be transferred into your trust during your lifetime.

how can i view someones will

How can I view someone’s Will?

Wills and Estate Planning
how can i view someones will

Several times each year my phone rings and someone asks me how they can locate and view the Will of someone close to them.

The circumstances of these requests vary, but can be broken down into two main groups: Someone has recently died, and their relative wants to know if they are a beneficiary; or an elderly person is becoming forgetful and their relative is concerned that they have been coerced into changing their Will, and want to satisfy their curiosity.