In a recent case a husband and wife were trying to have children by IVF. Five embryos were produced. One of the embryos was successfully implanted and the wife gave birth to a child. The remaining four embryos were frozen. Read more
As our lives increasingly move to “online digital platforms”, it is becoming more important to help your executor access your “digital assets” after you die. Digital assets include social media accounts, shopping accounts, bank or investment account details, entertainment collections, gambling accounts, and the like. Read more
In 2013 a woman died. She was the mother of a son who was bankrupt. Her will stated that the bankrupt son was to be the executor of her estate and the sole beneficiary. In addition to this, the mother had not made a Binding Death Benefit nomination for her superannuation. This meant that the payment of the superannuation would be decided by the trustees of the super fund. Read more
In 2014 a man took out life insurance. He named his de facto partner as the beneficiary of the policy. In his application he had claimed to be a healthy individual who did not take drugs, and who lead a healthy lifestyle. The policy was for $2,625,000.00. Read more
In 2018 a man died without a will. He had three children. He had separated from his wife eight years prior to his death. Despite separating, the two were not divorced. Not long after the man’s death, his family was shocked to find that their father had a secret lover who they had never met or heard of. She made a claim on their father’s estate. Read more
As digital assets continue to rise in popularity, the amount of people holding digital assets and dying without either telling others of the assets, or not providing enough information in order to access the assets, is dramatically on the rise Read more
A father had six daughters. He made a will dividing his estate equally between the six of them. In 2013 he changed his will to give $40,000.00 to each of five of the daughters, and the rest of his $3,000,000.00 estate to his remaining daughter. Read more
Difficult disputes can arise when administering an estate requiring in depth legal advice that can be expensive! Read more
Grandparents generally do not have a responsibility to provide for grandchildren. So what happens when grandchildren try and bring a claim against their grandparent's estate? Read more
A parent is entitled to cut a child out of their will, particularly if there has been a serious break down in the relationship. However the reason behind the break down of the relationship can be reviewed by the court and adjustments in gifts can be made at the courts discretion. Read more