Estate Planning
Plan the transition while you can still influence it.
Estate planning is the legal scaffolding that lets your home, business or farm pass to your family on your terms, not the law's defaults. Most plans take two visits to put in place.
What we handle
Whole-of-estate planning, not just a Will.
Nobody likes to think about preparing a Last Will and Testament too much, but inevitably one day you will have to leave your house, business, farm or other valuable asset, whether by selling up, retiring, or for health reasons. The point of estate planning is to make that transition easy — not just for you, but for your family and the people who depend on what you have built.
Estate planning is an active process of re-evaluating the estate when circumstances in life change: marriage or divorce, changes to family assets, business acquisitions or sales, changes to superannuation, insurance or taxation, and the establishment of discretionary trusts. The right plan today is not necessarily the right plan in five years.
We assess your assets, the likely taxation consequences of various outcomes, the risk of claims against the estate, and the protective structures that suit your situation. Then we put the documents in place — Will, Power of Attorney, Advance Care Directive, and any trust deeds — so the plan is real, not theoretical.
If you are here because…
Three of the most common reasons people start planning.
You own a business or farm.
A Will is not enough on its own. A succession plan makes the transition easy for your family or your employees, and dramatically reduces the chance that the business or farm has to be sold up when you leave.
Your circumstances have changed.
Marriage, divorce, a new child, a sale, a major asset bought, a structure change. Each of these is a reason to re-evaluate. Estate planning is an active process, not a one-off event.
You want to reduce family conflict.
Most estate fights start over silence rather than money. A documented plan, made while you are well, removes most of the room for argument later.
Common questions
What people most often ask on the first call.
A Will is one document, dealing with how your assets are distributed after you die. An estate plan is the whole picture — Will, Power of Attorney, Advance Care Directive, succession arrangements for your business, asset protection, tax planning, and the documents that work together to make a complete plan.
After any major life event: marriage, separation, divorce, the birth of a child or grandchild, a substantial change in assets or debts, the purchase or sale of a business, a change in superannuation or insurance, or the establishment of a trust. As a baseline, every five years.
If you want your business or farm to continue rather than be sold up at the worst possible time, yes. A succession plan makes the transition orderly, tax-efficient, and predictable for the people who will run the business after you.
Structuring your affairs so that personal or business creditors cannot easily reach the assets you want to preserve for your family. It might involve a trust, a separate company, or a different ownership pattern. We tell you whether it is worth doing in your specific case.
Yes — through an Advance Care Directive. It records your healthcare and lifestyle preferences and names a substituted decision-maker. We prepare it alongside your Will and Power of Attorney.
We'll call you back the same business day.
Tell us briefly what's happening. Steven will call you back for a free 15-minute conversation, the same business day. No obligation, no pressure to engage us afterwards.
Thank you. We'll be in touch today.
Your message is with our team. If it's urgent, you're welcome to call us directly on (08) 8522 6025.