Thomas came to see us about his estate planning and was surprised to find out that his will only covers assets owned by him personally. He had trusts and companies and had assumed they were covered too. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

With Thomas’ trusts, we could pass the control of the them to someone by amending the trust deed to make the desired controller (the appointor or guardian), or by directly changing the trustee of the trust. Since Thomas had numerous trusts, he wanted to be able to pass control of the trusts to different people so that he felt he was being fair to his beneficiaries.

Similarly, for his company, the assets owned by the company couldn’t be included in his will. Some of the shares in his company were held by him personally so he could gift those in his will, but some were held by trusts, so we had to pass control of the trusts to the beneficiaries.

Lastly, Thomas also had a self managed super fund, so we put in place Death Benefit Nominations so the funds were directed as he wished.

Estate Planning can be complicated when there are substantial assets and complex business structures in place. Seeking professional advice from an Estate Planning lawyer and accountant will ensure your hard-earned assets are passed to your intended recipients.