There’s a Will… But is it the way?

By Chris Castles

So you have a Will, but is it really the way?

Amazingly, your biggest assets most likely won’t be dealt with by your Will if you die. According to the ABS a person’s biggest assets are their home, followed by their super, followed by their business assets.

If you jointly own your home with your partner then, chances are, your share of your home will automatically go to your partner.

And super? Well that definitely won’t be dealt with by your Will, unless you’ve instructed the trustee of your super to pay it to your estate, or they decide to do it off their own bat. Either way, that can mean a whole bunch of extra tax paid, or loss of Centrelink benefits, or increases in aged care fees, or some combination of all of those.

So what about your business? Well, unless you personally own the assets of the business chances are you’ll be leaving some form of control of the business in your Will and not the actual business itself.

And that’s not all. If you own a bank account jointly, or some shares jointly, then most likely these won’t be covered under your Will either.

So you might have a Will, but is that really the right way, and will it get the assets to where you want to go.
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