Estate Planning
Planning for how your property and other financial
resources are owned and controlled is all about:
- how best to achieve your overall objectives; and
- avoiding foreseeable problems.
You will have broad objectives:
- for the holding and control of family assets;
- how and to what extent family members should benefit;
- risks that are of concern to you;
- what should happen if you are incapacitated;
- who you want benefit from your estate if you should die and how
it should be shared amongst those persons.
There are many legal and financial consequences
associated with the:
- holding of assets;
- control of assets;
- passing of assets; and
- administration of estates,
and all of these are interrelated.
Complicated issues can arise. It is here that professional
advisers have an important role to play. They can assist in
advising on how best your overall objectives can be fulfilled
within existing legal and financial frameworks.
Planning for succession is not just confined to
financial issues. Careful planning can also reduce the
potential for disputes and problems between executors and
beneficiaries as well as between beneficiaries themselves.
The administration of many estates gives rise to disputes and
problems that could have been avoided by even a modest level of
planning at the time of making the Will. Your advisers need
to consider just what is going to be required to administer your
particular estate. It is about anticipating situations that
are capable of producing conflicts and doing something to prevent
the situation arising.
Read more on succession planning and
planning
generally.