The purpose of having Powers of Attorney and Medical Treatment Decision Maker documents put in place is to ensure that if you lose capacity through an accident or illness then a surviving spouse or family member or friend do not need to go to VCAT to seek a guardianship or a financial administration order.
These documents are also important to put in place for an adult child with a disability who cannot look after their own financial affairs when they attain the age of 18 years – a child under 18 will be assisted for these maters by their parents as guardians but once they turn 18 then the parents need to have powers of attorney prepared for their adult child (if the child can give instructions for this and have capacity to do so) or they may need to obtain guardianship orders from VCAT for the adult child.
Superannuation is often one of the largest and most accessible assets that we own due to the life insurance component built into industry fund policies.
Beneficiary Nominations need to be looked at carefully and a review or execution of binding death nominations is critical to ensure that the funds pas to the intended correct beneficiary.
We can review binding death nominations to ensure that they have been drawn and executed properly for both industry funds and self-managed superannuation funds.
Intestacy places a large responsibility on your surviving family as they will need to rely upon a legislative formula that guides how an Estate will be distributed. This will mean that they have no control over who distributes the estate and whether the Estate will be distributed according to their intentions.
This means that a family member will need to apply to the Supreme Court for Letters of Administration, and this may result in your estate being distributed in a way that you had not intended. In turn, disputes may arise within your remaining family which can result in unnecessary and expensive litigation.
On 1 November 2017 significant new laws came into effect in Victoria affecting intestate estates through the commencement of the Administration and Probate and Other Acts Amendment (Succession and Related Matters) Act 2017.
The majority of the changes affecting the Intestacy provisions will only affect anyone who dies after the amending Act and include:
Before granting leave to apply for an order under the Wills Act 1997 (as amended) relating to a statutory Will, the court must be satisfied that:
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