Do I really need a will? A hard but important chat. Law for mummies not dummies, with - Tess, wills and estate lawyer

We would like to acknowledge the Bungalong people, traditional custodians of this land where we record this podcast, and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. Hello yummy mummies! Welcome to Beyond the Bump, a podcast brought to you by Jane Couldwell and Sophie Pierce. This podcast is targeted at mums, mums to be, and women in general. And gents feel free to have a listen too. It's a place to have real discussions and ask real questions, no matter how hard, with honest and authentic people. The aim is to have you feeling lighter, more supported and more understood after every listen. Now we can't promise that it will always be kept PG, so please be mindful around little ears. Here we go! Hello Tess and welcome to Beyond the Bump podcast for our beautiful Bumpies. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and what we're going to talk about today? Hi Sophie and Jade, long time Bumpy, first time on the pod. We love that! So my name's Tess, I am a mother to two beautiful children. I have a son who's five and a half and a daughter who's three and a half. The half-aid is a very important. Yes they are. Thank you. For because you will get in trouble for a little if they have a lot of lives. I get asked every day, how many days till I'm six? And I have a husband Nick who is my wonderful life partner, who is the best hype girl and feel very privileged to have found him in my life. We met on Bumble, so we've got Bumble babies. Or keeps whiping folks. They're all good. Yeah they're good. This is not sponsored by Bumble, by the way. And I'm here today in my professional capacity as a lawyer. I've been practicing for over 10 years now. For nine of those years was in private practice in law firms on the Gold Coast, then found myself in complete motherhood and career burnout, took a little break and then opened my own law firm, which is Light & Lane, and we service clients in everything to do with business law. But what I'm here today to have a chat with you guys about is the area I'm most passionate about, which is a state planning for families, particularly families with young kids. And what got you into that? Like what was the passion around that? Because I feel like when you say law, it is gosh, where does it end, where does it start? What in particular? What in particular got you into this section? Motherhood? My parents are both creative artists, so I've gone the complete opposite direction, went into private practice and just sort of kept falling down the rabbit holes that I was just traditionally getting pushed in. You always do a bit of a state planning when you're starting out in your legal career. I was doing a lot of traditional state planning for sort of elderly clients and then when I became a mother myself and I sat down to review my own estate plan, I started thinking about all of the additional considerations that I now have to make. And that's when I realized and talking to my friends about how many of them don't even have never even thought about it. I thought, wow, there's a huge piece that's missing here from an education perspective for parents of young kids and how important this part of life planning is. I remember we did a wheel when my first daughter was born, so she's eight. And I remember when my husband brought it up just thinking, oh, don't talk about that. Like that's almost, you feel a bit like you're jinks in yourself or something like that. And I remember it wasn't until we went to the meeting and sat down and went through it. And I breathed breathed breathed breathed breathed this side of the relief of this weight that I didn't even know. It's like I didn't even know I was carrying. It's like, oh, those decisions have now been made, even though I didn't, I wasn't worrying about them, but I no longer need to, well, I don't know how to explain it, but it's funny because even you said before we started recording, have you done anything about it since? And I'm like, no, I've have two new children since then. Like we own a different house since then. Like everything has changed. And even maybe, you know, you'll go through what happens in a wheel, but yeah, I think this is a great reminder for us and for bumpies that it doesn't have to be this like negative manifestation out into the world. It's actually a really responsible thing to do as a parent. And we're not going to make this boring one because I won't be able to pay attention, but also because I'll put away the legislation. This is wheels for dummies. Yeah. No, but it is because when you say a state, I go, well, I don't have one of those. Like I don't have 50,000 houses. I got two bucks to my name when I have my first daughter. So it's like, why would I need a wheel? And I think a lot of people out there, it is the last thing that they think of doing why they would need it. And still to this day have never done a wheel. So call me whatever you want, but call me Trevor. Yeah, call me Karen. Call me anything. But basically, why do we need a wheel? And what is it? What is it? Okay, well, this will be your free consultation. Great. Jade. And everyone else. I get it. Thinking about a world where we're not in it and our children are is a really morbid thought. And it's a yucky one. And it's something that we don't want to have to think about. I get that firsthand. I've walked that path and done that journey. I think though we put so much time and planning into bringing these kids into the world and trying to set them up for the best possible life they can have. That responsibility follows all the way through to, well, what if that world exists without us in it? So that should be first and foremost where parents should be coming from. This is a part of life planning. Just as we ensure our cars, we're not going to buy a car and drive around and I'm sure even if you do have a car and you're uninsured every time you hop in, you think, I hope I don't crash today. Yeah. It's going to be really expensive. But once you have that insurance, it's that piece of mind element to say, I've put that effort in. I've done that planning. I can tick that off the list. And it can allow you to just live more in the moment, right? So why do we need a will? Well, you mentioned something there. Why would you need a will if you don't own anything? And the state itself is just the phrase that's referred to about someone who's passed away, their assets, their debts, their liabilities, all of their things. You're like, I've got them. I've got plenty of those. Continue. From my perspective, I've got all the negatives. It's their positives. Your kids are like, "Play's turned through the will." Yeah. Unfortunately, the realistic, the reality of that is that when we pass away, our liabilities don't pass with us. I'll get the links that, by the way, I only found out the other day that all that crap, if you leave it, goes down to your family members and they have to cop it. That's exactly right. So I think why do we need a will is better answered by understanding what happens when someone passes away without one and how, yeah, even a simple will assist in that process. So if we're looking at a person who's passed away suddenly, let's just say they were in a family with young kids and had a partner. No one is automatically at law, entitled to be able to access their bank accounts or manage their affairs or make decisions for them. That person has to be either nominated through a will or granted that authorization by a court. Even in the jihad? So I thought if it was a, you know, you were partnered. No. The will was more if like both of you died. No. No. No. That's a big misconception. And then there's a whole other element when you then separate as well. Yeah. And that can potentially lead any documents you've made in the past to be not worth the paper they're printed on as well. So all of these different life events can change certain circumstances. But going back to when someone's passed away without a will, if there's no one that's automatically authorized through a will to be able to deal with their affairs, someone, either a family member, their partner or a close friend, if they don't have one, has to apply to the court to be able to be granted that authorization to deal with their assets. So that's going to cost thousands of dollars to do. The cheapest court costs, I think is Queensland, which is sitting in about 800 and something dollars. Plus you're going to have to get a lawyer to help you do those documents because they're very specific and have to be done in a very certain way. It can also potentially take up to three months. So during that time, bank accounts are frozen. Decisions can't be made. Assets can't be dealt with. You can see the snowball effect there. And that's just before we've even got to who gets what? I actually, I was at the hairdresser a few weeks ago and this beautiful woman sat down and she's like, "Oh, my mum died last week." And I'm like, "Wow." Like that, I'm so sorry. Maybe I'm sorry. But she did, it was just, I tend to have these deep in the middle of the conversation down and nowhere. Giving the vibe. And she's like, it's quite overwhelming. It takes the process of one finding out what happened, like getting that checked. It takes forever. What do you call it? A coroner report. I guess it depends how that goes. And then also she's like, and then she's got her house. But I'm the only child. So it's all come to me now. And she didn't pay it off. So she's like, "I've just, I've never been more stressed in my life." And I never. You're grieving at the same time. Yeah. And I've never thought I'd be here. And that's a really important point you make there, Sophie, that this process is all playing out. Well, someone's lost a really important person to them. So that is just trying to get someone appointed to be able to be able to access your bank accounts and be able to deal with your things. The other element is, and when someone passes away without a will, is how their assets are then given is strictly in compliance with what the law says. Now that might not allow line or be the best situation to that particular family unit circumstances. So if the primary income earner in a family passes away, for example, and the primary parents, stay at home parent who has not been working or in a paid position, is left to then try to pick up all of these pieces. And then they find out that under the law, they're only entitled to a certain percentage of their partners estate and their kids get the other shares, which of course sounds nice and fair and reasonable. Their kids are six months old and two and a half. They're now left with a mortgage that they have to try and pay off, which only their part of the inheritance is going to cover a very small amount of. And they're not allowed to essentially use those children's inheritance for any other purposes other than the lifestyle well-being educational needs of those kids until they turn 18. Oh my gosh. When we're talking about estate planning as well, we are not just talking about when someone passes away. We're looking at the entire holistic picture of if you all of a sudden can't make decisions for yourself, but you're still alive. Who's going to automatically be able to step in and do that for you? It's not always just your spouse. Is that a power of attorney? Thank you, Jim. Two. Two. All the way through to the end of life event. And then from the end of life event, what does the journey of that look like for your family after you've gone? I feel stressed. I'm not doing your deal. But do you feel stressed because you haven't got something in place or you feel stressed about it being put in place? No. I don't have something in place. I feel a little bit irresponsible and also being so unaware at the age of 38 that none of this has really gone past my head. It's quite concerning. And then you do think of your parents. And I'm sure our parents will let's hope that they've got something in place. But once again, that's going to fall on you at some stage. And not to mention then your partner's parents. It's a lot. It is a lot. And we are about to see one of the largest transfers of wealth in Australian history with the current baby boomer generation moving into retirement and then passing away. So there is going to be a historical number. I think it's in the billions of wealth that will start to get transferred down. What does that mean? Like through inheritance. That's right. So all of the baby boomers who are all the well off ones, all the investment properties are going to start passing away soon because that's where their generation is heading traditionally. Yeah. And their wealth is going to start to pass down to their children, which are into the millennials. And so our generation now who we're looking like we feel as though we don't have any assets that we're putting in a state plan in that could change very drastically very quickly as well. So making sure then all of a sudden if we do receive quite a large inheritance, that's going to change the point we put in place based on what we own today and being able to constantly adapt that. Okay. So it's about protecting, sorry, I never really even thought about that. It's not even what you have at the moment. It's what may be handed to you at some point in your life. And that's not always positive things, right? Well, it depends on what, yeah, what skeletons, can you be passed on debt with nothing positive? And then what's your obligation to like pay that? Yeah. So the obligation sits with the person who's going to be nominated as the executor or the legal representative of that estate. So that's the person either appointed in the will. The debt is never going to pass through to a beneficiary. That's going to be, that's a whole nother discussion probably for another time. But I just, I just like, I feel like there would be a collective panic of like, on my parents' in debt that I didn't know about. Do I need a lot of a sudden? Do I need a lot of a sudden to them? What it essentially means is there's going to be probably no house to actually get passed down. Yeah. But rather, the house has got to get sold to be, to be able to pay off any debts and that type of stuff. I was having a conversation with a friend recently and they were saying that they are planning on moving on to her in laws, like house and they're going to build a granny flat there. They're kind of planning on like selling their place, pooling their savings to build this structure on the property. And she's really worried that she's like, what does that mean? I then own. Because she has her names not on the house, his name's not on the house, the parents still own the house. So in one of those situations, what do you do? It's becoming really, really common because intergenerational living in today's society is really picking up. And so, elderly parents are needing assistance. They don't want to be moved into assisted living facilities. And so it's really common that adult children and their families are moving on to their elderly parents' properties, either moving into the main dwelling and potentially putting money into building a smaller dwelling for the elderly parents to live in or some kind of combination of that. From an estate planning perspective, that does start to complicate things slightly. Where a family has sold up an asset potentially or is investing a large amount of money into an asset that they don't actually own, there's a lot of trust and faith that's going into that elderly parent ensuring that they're going to be looked after in the will. But I guess, even if you are looked after in the world, what if they just up and in two years, they sell the place before the world's even in most of the men. And the last thing you also want is if that elderly parent does pass away, all of a sudden getting kicked out of where you've just up and moved to. So there's different strategies you can look at. It's quite commonly referred to as a granny flat arrangement. There's some other kind of streams that you can look at there in terms of maybe it's a loan that's conditional upon either the property being sold and then a guaranteed return coming back to the family that's moved on. If there are financial investments getting made onto the property that they don't have ownership of, you might be looking at things, trying to put some kind of value on those renovations and what that looks like from the family's perspective. And all of that is part of protecting the younger family's wealth in the instance that something was to happen to that asset that they've got. Know what we call equitable interest in, no ownership rights to. So it's unfortunately not a black and white answer. There are things you can do to put out. There are 100% things. And I would definitely encourage one of the largest things that pops up with a state disputes is what we refer to as mum and dad loans, which is either mum and dad have lent money, which the children thought was a gift. And then all of a sudden the estate is claiming, no, that was a loan. You have to pay it back. Oh, wow. All vice versa. So the bank of mum and dad's not always good at it. Yes, they're popped in there saying when the house goes. Yeah, that's right. Or the parents have written down somewhere and the executive has found it that said this amount of money was given to your brother. I actually think that's fair. If you do have a brother in sister, you have two sisters and four brothers that you do get to a point where the person that has taken a lot of money doesn't get this same amount. It's disgusting though. I don't feel like it's just just a bit. Yeah, that was cool. But how do you know until you have this competition? And the hardest part is the person who's passed away isn't there to give any contribution as to the terms around that arrangement. So making sure that's all documented and that can be really uncomfortable, right? Especially when it's not your family. Like the in-laws isn't the other step of like, it is. And we're talking about sensitive relationships, not wanting to hurt feelings. Everyone has the right intentions. And I would say that because we have the right intentions, let's make sure it's done properly. And let's just get those uncomfortable conversations done out. So there is zero ambiguity and if there is any kind of dispute that arises either during the person's lifetime or after, there's always the fall back to what was originally agreed. Let's work through that framework. And everyone has the right at the end of the day to feel safe and secure. Absolutely. And it is not unreasonable to ask for security for a financial investment you're making. That is just stock standard commercial terms. But this was a third party arrangement, a business dealing and you were asking someone to invest money into your business. They're going to come back and say, okay, but what's my security to get that money back out? That's going to be a very standard term. So don't feel like it would be anything that's unreasonable or overly onerous. It is such a standard term. Like most common arrangement is basically a loan agreement where it's viewed as. You go and say, "Tas." Yeah. And you contact. Yeah. We'll put them in there. Show notes. It's essentially a loan arrangement which basically just tallies up how much money you've been investing into the property at the time that you've been living there. And then if it is to get sold, there's an agreed percentage of repayment from the sale proceeds or something like that. Which is fair. Absolutely. And I says families were doing that all the time. But you need to see a lawyer to understand what your rights are and to get all that out. And I think we always think it will never be us as a partnership. It will never be. Totally my family that has that fight. And I kind of read a book recently which was about a woman going through a divorce. And this feeling of the person you fall in love with is not. You can't think of them as the same person that you separate or divorce from. And I'm not saying that everyone. You can have an amicable separation. But I think you need to have that level of cynicism that. No, it could happen to us. And if it does happen to us, I need to assume that he or she is not going to treat me, how they treated me when we were getting together or when we were happily married. But I feel like this only has now become apparent that we are getting older. We are seeing a lot of our friends or loved ones. separate and then you're starting to see the trickles and the effects of how people are treating each other and you kind of do go, "Shit, like not that I feel like I'm there," but like, this is quite close. -You could be. -Life quite close. -I think what changes is, life gets a lot more complicated. We're not in our 20s now with very minimal responsibilities. We have children to look after. We've got life expenses, mortgages, rent, car repayments, school fees, all of those types of things. That's going to add pressure to every kind of arrangement. So I think there's very obvious reasons as to why that can deteriorate relationships quite quickly because it's so different to when you both join that union together. If we are going off to get a will done, whether that be partnered or unpartnered, what kind of things should we expect? What kind of decisions do we expect? We're going to have to make in that process. -Great question. The reason why you would come and see an estate planning lawyer versus one of the online will platforms or asking old Charlie Kathy. Is your estate planning lawyer is going to look at your entire circumstances? Like I said, it's in a estate plan. You're not just getting a will. What that means is they're going to be looking at your decision makers when you're still alive but lost capacity. Those people are going to be deciding things like what clothes we wear, where we live, when we eat and drink, who we're allowed to see, what medical professionals. It's not just the big, do we turn the lights off questions? It's everything we have to decide for ourselves on a day-to-day basis. We have to entrust in someone else to do that. Then when the passing of life event occurs, then it comes down to the estate. Once we've done all of that and we've figured out our structures and there's so many things to consider for families in terms of how to best place our wealth for our family's benefit moving forward. Do we look at our current circumstances and say, "Okay, well, if ex-partner was to pass away, then the surviving spouse really needs as much access to money as possible to help pay down as many debts so that they can be as available to the children as possible and is that financial burden?" That's going to absorb most of the kids inheritance, but for the short term, that's going to have a more meaningful impact on them. Or is there enough cash sitting in the estate that we want to try and make that last for as long as possible for our surviving spouse and kids and put it into a structure that's got a lot of layers of protection, lots of tax, avenue, streaming options there. There's lots of different ways to plan those things out. I need to say right now that this makes me sad and also makes me feel a bit sick having this conversation and if I feel like this now, when everything touch wood is okay, I can't imagine going through all of this when you have to grieve. Can you imagine going through all of that with no plan in place? Yeah, you've got goose bumps. It's a big wake-up call. What you're a state planning lawyer is going to do is once those traditional elements of a wheel is sorted, so who's stepping in as your executor and where are your assets going and how's that best structured for your family? The biggest and the most emotional element of a state planning is going to be who's going to look after your kids if both parents have gone. So if there's been a very unexpected tragedy in both parents have passed and you've got kids who are under the age of 18, it's your responsibility to nominate their guardians in your will. If you don't nominate guardians in your will, essentially they will need to go into a immediate care with the closest member of family and the courts will determine who will be their guardian moving forward. Now if you've placed a nomination in your will, the courts still need to approve it, but they're going to look at that and say this person sat down and mapped this out and for those, there's nine times out of 10 the court's going to go with who's nominated in the will. What if it was like you did it like say 15 years ago and you're not even speaking to them and you totally forgot to update your will? So obviously the person who's nominated would hopefully in that instant say this doesn't feel that appropriate anymore and then there can be a conversation with the remaining family members, but it becomes a really layered question and the other element to it is the guardian of your kids is not automatically the person who's responsible for managing the money inheritance for your kids and they could be two different people because it might not be appropriate that the person you trust for their everyday care would be the most financially sensible for the long term duration. So if I said if I hadn't done this and I just assumed, I think I said it to mum the other day, I go well obviously it would just be you. If I you know like you know it'd just be you. And I think you do because I remember I put my mum and dad for hours, but then there was the question I think I then had to do a secondary one. Oh I feel like there's someone who's touching, but where they may due to age or whatever not be appropriate and then you do do a secondary one. I feel like the secondary one that was really hard because like for us it was like what sibling do you pick? Who's parenting values do you align with? The biggest mistake I find people doing is and I always challenge clients on this is they'll say oh my sister and Lauren, her husband, I'm like okay and the husband. I know that you see them as a unit, but what does that look like if she was to pass away? Is he gonna step up and be the sole guardian or if they separate? Is he still gonna be entitled to be a guardian of your kids when he's no longer associated with the family? Or is it more appropriate just to list the sister and law? Okay, Mike drop. All right, because yeah I'm pretty sure who we said we said the in law too. Yeah wow. I've said no one so far, so far out. And then there needs to be additional consideration. So our family might live into state and we might want our kids to be able to stay in their local area. We want their everyday life. You don't need to be minimally disrupted as much as possible. Then you might not be able to appoint a family member or you need to sit down with that family member and have a frank conversation and say hey if this was to happen what would your views be on moving up here? Would you be prepared to live in our house with our kids or would it look like our kids are needing to relocate into state? If so what are the costs that are going to be associated with that? You're going to have to renovate your house to be able to accommodate my kids. Do I then need to make sure that the estate plan accommodates for enough funds to ensure that happens? You're going to need a bigger car all of a sudden. Are my kids in moving schools? Are they going to go to the same private school as what your kids are going to? They've been going to state school now. We've not accommodated for school fees yet. The question's just snowball and snowball. But to give you both looking at me very shocked right now to give you as much guidance as possible, that is where my service is coming in. And because I think we think if we put our head in the sand then those decisions go away but they don't. As you say they're just being made without any kind. So we feel like it's stressful making those decisions but it's like either way that decision is being made. And you know what for some people they're okay with that. They're okay with these decisions being made without any of their input. For me that's not okay with me. I feel sick. It's a big thing. These are our little people and we want them to have the best shot at life whether or not we're in it or not. Yeah because in mind my kids like who we put that would be a relocation but it's like if something tragic happened is if on top of that they're going to want to do states as well. And you might need to talk to a really close friend. It doesn't have to just be family. I've got an entire framework that I work through with clients that has these questionnaires where we essentially stress test all of these intentions. Now when I'm talking about stress testing it's not stressful. It is about me with my thinking cap on. You're a state planning lawyer with their thinking cap on. What we do is essentially make sure just so you're putting up a baby fence at the top of your stairs. Hubbies done it all good, looks all well and good but no one's actually going to make sure the thing's going to hold if the toddler comes up and clashes down on it. So your state planning lawyers should be always stress testing all of these decisions you're making to ensure that when that toddler comes and pushes on that baby gate that thing's going to stay still. And to ensure that what your intention is when you tell them that that's actually what's going to play out in real life. That's the difference between doing a comprehensive holistic estate plan with someone who's qualified and experienced in doing it or going onto an online will platform and trying to figure it out for yourself. And I know it's going to depend how complicated your estate and everything is but ballpark figure how much does it cost for someone to get this done? It depends how much they're willing to put into it and how far they want to go. Generally for and every sort of law firm is going to differ slightly in prices. For a very traditional looking estate plan for a couple with maybe they're adding in also sort of an inheritance trust structure as well. They're not going to be looking at more but maybe between two to three thousand dollars somewhere like my law firm. Now that is a lot of money for some people to think about paying right now. I get it. We've got competing financial interests as young families all the time. But if I can take the conversation back to ensuring our car and ensuring our house. Those things are non-negotiable expenses that we budget for. This expense at the first point is going to be big. And then every time you revisit it and we encourage you to revisit every two to three years. - We don't have a G. - Are you okay? - Yeah, no, I'm taking it easy. - Okay, I'm just like-- - I'm like, do you need a minute? - Yeah, but you're not gonna be paying that over and over again. - No, no, no, no. - It's also a really big mindset shift for people to make because they're spending this money on something they're never gonna see the benefit of themselves. - Yeah, look, we're looking at our kids' future. And I also think that like sitting here, I know I'm feeling rattled and sick, but like to be fair, I am not one to, and I guess we're all not really one, but I don't ever put myself in a worst-case scenario of my husband and I not being here for our children. So that there and this conversation makes me feel sick that thought. - Absolutely. - And then if we then talk about all the other things, it's like, okay, but that there, that hit the bottom of like, oh my gosh, like, yeah, of course there's always that possibility. - But the fact that you are feeling so emotional about it right now means you care. - Yeah. - And it means that you are gonna be doing the right thing and this is something that is super important to you and how lucky are your kids that you would give them that privilege of planning? - And they're not to pay? - The thing for a lot of us always, we do get the privilege of time right now. Like hopefully we all get the privilege of time. So why would we not use that privilege and put that planning in place? - So what if you do have a will? You've set it up, you've done all the things. Then you do get an inheritance. Like you're gonna say, a lot of people from the baby boomers are going to be handing down some sort of debt or inheritance. Do you then have to change your will because you've now? - Great question. So we encourage clients to just pick their documents up and look at them at least every two years. Most of the time no one needs to make any changes. - But when could I find this? - For once. - We're slightly disordered. But what you're looking for is to have a look at the people that you've nominated and just make sure that those relationships are still valid. That maybe that person's circumstances have changed or the guardian I nominated now lives in California might not be appropriate anymore. And it's when those things start to get triggered, then you can do some updates and it's never gonna cost as much unless you're doing really substantial structural changes to your estate plan. It's never gonna cost as much as what it did when you first put it in place. Might be a few hundred dollars or whatnot to change some nominations. But that's about the frequency. If you do receive a really large inheritance and it might be a bit more of an involved conversation with your estate planning lawyer saying, "How can I best protect this?" My parents wanted it to stay with me and not go to a potential ex-partner of mine if that were to ever transpire. How can I make sure that that happens? - Wow. - One of the biggest misconceptions with estate planning is that our superannuation is automatically gonna transfer into our will. But our superannuation is actually owned by our superfund and you need to give very specific directions and instructions to your superfund in order to oblige them to follow your wishes. And in addition to that, there's only three categories of people that can receive your superannuation at law. And that's your spouse, be it a de facto partner, sometimes even an ex-partner can still be entitled. - Oh, shit. - A child. And if you don't have either of those, it needs to be your legal personal representative. So the executor of your estate. Now, a lot of people don't know this. And when you go on to your superannuation fund website, there is a very easy to fill out online form that is not going to bind your superannuation to follow those wishes. - No, I remember ticking a box when I started Toys Are Us when I was 15 or 20, that's doing much for me today. - Well, you'd be surprised. Our superannuation is sometimes our biggest cash asset, particularly because we've got life insurance policies that can be combined into them. So someone who might think they don't own anything could look at their super profile and find out, "Oh my gosh, if I passed away, there's $500,000 of cash sitting there to go out to my nominated people." There's a case that passed through the courts a couple of years ago, which always just pulls at the heartstrings that there was a single mom, she got a will completed, she nominated her sister as her executor and the guardian of her solo son who was about eight or nine years old at the time. And then, so that was all good, the will was perfectly valid. And then she went to obviously complete her superannuation document. She did so without, we can only assume because she's passed away, can't ask her any questions without any guidance and she's completed the form wrong. And what she's actually gone and done is put her sister's name down. The courts can only assume she was trying to nominate her sister as a legal personal representative so that the money in her superannuation could get paid into her will and be managed by the sister as her son's guardian. But because she listed her sister who's not one of those eligible categories of people and she completed the form wrong, the superannuation fund rejected it. And essentially said, "The only person that's entitled to receive it is your son." Now that sounds all right. But if it's going directly from the superannuation fund under the directions of that super fund to a beneficiary and that beneficiary is a minor, that money gets held by the public trustee until that son turns 18 years of age. And the public trustee is really expensive to have money held by them. And it's really restrictive for the sister to now be able to access that money as she's running the charge of the son. Yeah. So that can be even if bumpies take one thing away from this chat, jump onto your superannuation profile and check where your nominations are up to. And if you have not printed and signed that form in front of two people, your nomination is potentially not valid. And if you do not know where your super and who your super is with, go and find out. MyGov, through the MyGov portal on the ATO section. So it doesn't, it has a really good service where you can essentially find all of your different super profiles that are out there and then you can compile them together. And with life insurance, I always see on the ads where it's like, you know, you pay $20 and get 200 million windy dials. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. How important is life insurance? Life insurance can make such a fundamental impact to a young family. And for people our age who are predominantly healthy, it can be quite a affordable policy of insurance to take out and it could potentially change your estate from being a couple of 100,000 all the way to a couple of million depending on how much you ensure yourself for. And that could have a fundamental impact and difference for your family if something was to happen to you. Wow. There's a lot to think about and I know it can feel really overwhelming. I suppose what I would love listeners to understand is there are people out there who do this for a living and my mission is to make this process as seamless and achievable for clients as possible. And it's so good once it's done. And what we do differently as well is we don't just stop at the will. The will is only responsible for maintaining your legally binding instructions. But like Sophie said, where are all of my documents? Yes. There is additional elements that should be considered and even more so important for our guardian nominations that we can go into and they're called your letters of wishes or your life workbook. And essentially it's where you can work through and lay out all of that important information. It's got things all the way down to, and you can be as descriptive as possible or you could be as vague as you want. It's entirely up to you. Your people will get out of it what you're prepared to put into it. The guardian section of those further elements is life changing for families. Can you imagine your little one waking up? This is where things might get quite deep. Mum and Dad aren't there. They're all of a sudden staying at Arnie's house and all of a sudden they're getting their toast served to them with the cross-son. And there's a tantrum. They're not quite verbal yet because they're only one and a half, but they always want their toast cut with crusts off and in triangles. Who's to know that? Nah, I can't. But how, like, because I'm gonna, like, to be fair, I mean, now I'm okay because I'm in a spot where my kids, like, can talk about their toast. But like, if I did this when they were younger, in three years, I don't want to have to go through all of this to change that conversation to something else because I don't know. Like, I just feel like. No, I get it. And that's, it's gonna be so dependent on the family and their circumstances. When you have little tiny people in your life, there's gonna be at least a fairly. I guess we leave that list like if grandma's coming to, like, babysit, I feel like we've all been guilty of leaving that list of being there. So and so has this for breakfast and then pop them down for a nap at 11.07 and then wait them up and, you know, the. It's only because you're doing it in the context of a state planning that that's the point that's feeling guilty. But we write this information down all the time. Our daycare has given that information to us every single day. Yeah, there are. And if you were starting a new daycare, you would happily write out their day-to-day plan for them. It's funny. There's a lot to think about. And letters? Like, would you do leave a letter for them? Again, it comes down to entirely. Oh, it's true. It's true. I've had clients write essentially a book for each of their kids. And then me, myself, personally, for each of my two kids, I have a small voice note that I've created for them. Essentially, it basically says, "Hi, sunny bunny. You've got this kid on your bed." So I'm with you always, love you to the moon and back and every star and back to you. Because that's what we say to each other all the time. And I'm hopeful that if something were to happen to me, he can use that voice note in times that are tough or when he's feeling overwhelmed. And it's just that small little piece. It's not going to be right. Let me help. It's very overwhelming. And all I. No, it is overwhelming. Yeah, it is. I absolutely get it. And it. My husband's overseas right now. This is not the right time to have this conversation. Luckily, it will be airing when it's. I know. So yeah, it goes. And for some people, that's just too much. And the other thing is you do not have to do this all in one go. This can be a gradual process. And if something is better than nothing. Anything is. So can you. Let's leave this lighter. Let's break it down. Someone wants and thinks, "Yep, I'm serious about this too." But I feel still quite overwhelmed about where to go. Yeah, where to start. Step one. I would say you need to allocate four hours. And hour and a half of that will be at the front talking to your estate planning lawyer. A good estate planning lawyer will give you essentially an information sheet for you to have a look at before you chat with them. It's going to run through some sort of topics that you need to start having a think about before you meet with them. That hour and a half meeting up front is going to be very comprehensive. There will be a lot of questions asked. So come prepared to answer them as best you can. With your partner. Yes, with your partner, whoever is doing the estate plan, that's it. And then after that, you need to do another hour of maybe fact finding, which might be getting people's contact information or whatnot. And then you're going to meet with your estate planning lawyer again to finalize your documents and get them all signed up and make sure everything collines. That is the start plan. It's going to be four hours. That's not too bad. There will be four intense hours. That's okay. But then you have the peace of mind that you've put something in place to be able to safeguard. It comes down to a family protection plan. That is the main aim of this. It moves from who gets what when we have kids to be a family protection plan really similar to like packing a really good nappy bag. Obviously, we don't want to have to use everything that's in the nappy bag every time we leave the house. But boy, if we get three poo explosions, are we glad we packed those extra nappies? I think it's just so interesting. We're putting our mindset like the hours we probably put into conception planning if someone did that. Pregnancy, birth planning, looking in today cares. But this just, I guess because as you said, you don't see that outcome of it. That's the whole point. Because you're not there when it happens. I guess to finish us off from an estate planning perspective, what do you wish every woman knew before getting married or entering into a serious relationship, especially one with children? From the estate planning perspective, it can be a really uncomfortable thought. And it's more so for people who are in relationships and having a think about what is this life going to look like if I was an inner and my partner was still here. How do you feel at the thought of your partner reparttering down the track? And what does that look like for both of you as well in terms of trying to protect what you've both built together for the benefit of your children if you've got them? I've never thought of that. If I was to pass away, I would love my husband Nick to be able to find someone else in the future and be able to experience love again and share that happiness. But I'm also really selfish and don't want that person ever getting a piece of what he and I have built together. And so there are structures that you can put in place to be able to protect that and ensure that what you're building for yourself and it might be things that you've brought into that relationship from before you've even met this person. But that's going to continue benefiting your family and the people you want. And that can include your spouse. We're not talking about cutting them out at all. We're talking about putting in place plans that protect it from outside influences if they were to come about. Yes. Wow. Thank you so much. Are you saying thank you? I'm saying thank you. I'm definitely saying thank you. You guys have been absolutely incredible. I know that this can be a really confronting topic to people coming to this battle like to you. We sit down and we're just like, no, but I think sometimes we need to put our big girl pants on and be like, we're responsible adults. We chose to have children. Like you can't. Just like in your podcast intro, you're here to talk about the good people. The parts of parenting have those hard conversations. A lot of people are automatically going and categorise this into one of those harder conversations. Thank you for bringing it to your audience because it is so important for them to listen to. I've got one last question and I don't know if you can answer it because it might not be your lawyer question to answer. But if you have got inheritance, right? Yes. Coming. And you meet someone and they are then with you for a few years and then you go to separate. Do they have entitlement into your inheritance and what your children have? Like is there an importance to make sure what you were saying just before that that won't happen? Yeah. Depends how your parents have passed it down to you. So I would hope that a lot of our parents who are holding significant wealth, a lot of these baby boomers are expecting for that to start to come down through. I'm doing that through really strategic structures that are essentially called bloodline trust or inheritance trust. And that is taking it out of your name. So for example, if your parents gave you an inheritance instead of it coming into Jade's name personally, that then becomes her assets, her property. Even if it's not a relationship breakdown, if you were sued, that's up for grabs from a creditor. It can pass into a different kind of structure, which is only for the benefit of you and your children and their children thereafter. Now that's not bulletproof, but it's going to add layers of complication of a potential future ex-partner trying to make a claim for it. Yeah. And I'd say that because you just, you don't know people. There are so many snakes out there in the world and you would hate for someone to just give you a part. And it's even people change as I was saying before. Like the person you're with isn't the person that you're then without. Yeah. And we also don't know what kind of people and adults, our young people are going to grow up to be. Oh my gosh, yes. I never even thought about that. Right. That's not. And we'll cut it there. No, no, no. We need to hear it. Where'd he go? Yes. But that's, we're putting these plans in place for potentially the next five years because that's really how far we can see into the future. But my five and a half year old little boy, I have no clue what kind of adult he's going to grow up to be. Yes. I have no clue what kind of financial sensibilities he's going to have. Is he going to have potential addiction issues? Is he going to become a business owner and work in a high risk industry? How can I best try and protect whatever I'm leaving him to be able to last the test of time and continue benefiting him and hopefully his future generations as well? Well said. They're the kind of conversations that we have. We think it'll be forever as like, you know, the six year old cell for whatever they do. We do. Their biggest issue in the day is whether the crust is on or off. Yeah. So I think if this conversation is triggering some thoughts for your bumpies, the first thing I would encourage them to do is check whether or not they do have a state planning documents in place. If they do, but they don't feel as though they've done the extra work of maybe giving those additional directions to guardians. Now I use the toast example. That's a very small example. Look at it. I think it's fitting for where we are. There's things that you can give them directions of like certain environments that might feel overwhelming to them. How best that they are calm down if they get overworked. These types of things that could be really helpful for a guardian if they find themselves responsible for these little kids, all of a sudden. If your bumpies have a state plans in place but haven't done that additional work, reaching out to an estate planning lawyer and asking those questions about some guidance around what that would look like. We've got at light and light and light an entire blueprint worked out to try and make it as easy as possible down to file saving names and directions as to how to tell your people how to find these things. When you get your documents through us you get an electronic copy, a hard copy, a USB. It's all done and it's got a really good, really good, really good adult slash slash slash slash parent. Going to day. After doing this. It's been like we're going out for dinner after but we've got to get through all of this first. Oh yeah. Take your flyer, pull it out at the dinner table at date night and the best thing I do, I always encourage clients pull out your favourite drink, be that a nice cup of tea or a bottle of wine together with your partner and work through these things, make it a bit of an event. Well it's a big event and you should both be as comfortable as can be to go through together and have those tough conversations. And I guarantee that once all of that is done, the peace of mind that knowing that you don't know what peace is. This is really, and then eight years past. Well, at least you still got one. Yeah. And I swear you can live a little bit freer because you know that the rest is taking care of it. So bungee jumping is on the cards for you. It's still for me. Not still for a table, sorry. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's been so great. Thanks for listening to this episode of Beyond the Bump. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and give us a review. If you didn't, good on you. You can also follow us on Instagram at beyondthebump.podcast to stay up to date on behind the scenes and future episodes. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye. (upbeat music)