Tailored Wills

Tailored advice and expertise in writing your Will

Talk to one of our estate planning experts

Planning for the future and ensuring your loved ones are well looked after is important. You know you need a Will, but it can be difficult to know how to get started and how to navigate those difficult decisions.

Our tailored Will service is where one of our Trust Managers who are experts in estate planning will meet with you to advise you and create your Will based on the complexity of your circumstances.

Depending on your needs, your Will is likely to fall under the following categories and incur a fee based on the complexity of your situation.

Find out more about our Will pricing based on the complexity of your situation
Pricing Options

Our tailored Will categories

Standard Will

This involves a straight forward distribution of your assets, when all of your estate passes equally to your immediate family.

Comprehensive Will

This includes situations involving blended families, a large number of beneficiaries, trusts or uneven distributions to family.

Complex Will

This involves business assets, partnerships, companies, establishing trusts, life interests and right of residence (when someone can stay in your home for their lifetime before it goes to beneficiaries).

What if you don't have a Will?

Administering an estate where there is no Will is likely to be very expensive, causing extra stress and financial worries at a difficult time.

Your estate will be dealt with in accordance to the law under the Administration Act 1969 and other applicable legislation. If you don’t have a Will, this can be quite complex and if you have children, your spouse or partner will not automatically inherit all your assets. A full description is below. But if you die without a Will you lose power to have your say, and instead the law decides for you.

This means that loved ones could miss out on their inheritance, and also possibly have to undertake a court application to appoint who takes care of your estate.

In some situations the distribution is clear, however often the position is a little more complex:

  • If your spouse/partner survives and you have had children – the spouse/partner receives all personal chattels, $155,000 and 1/3 of the remainder. The children receive the remaining 2/3 (in some cases the sale of a family home may be required to effect a necessary division of assets).

  • If your spouse/partner and parents are living but no children – your spouse receives all personal chattels, $155,000 and 2/3 of the remainder and your parents receive the remaining 1/3.

  • If there is no spouse/partner, children, or parents surviving – everything goes to other blood relatives such as grandparents, siblings, aunts or uncles or by default to the government.

Keeping your Will up to date

The next important step after making your Will is to ensure it remains securely kept and up to date – time and circumstances may drastically change what you own, to whom you wish to make bequests and how you wish to make them.

 

Your Will should be reviewed if:

01

You wish to change who will benefit under your current Will

02

You have had a child or grandchild

03

There has been a death in the family

04

Your relationship or financial situation has changed

05

You have children whose marital status has changed

If changes in your life mean you need to make further updates, it's easy to contact us to make the necessary changes. We provide continuity so you and your family can have peace of mind that we will always be here when you need us.

It is also very important to let your family know where your latest Will is held or even give a copy to a family member you trust to put away for safe keeping. Things can get very complicated if you have moved or if any major life events have happened since the last acknowledged Will.

At Trustees Executors all of our Wills are kept on an up-to-date database and the originals are kept securely in our vault.

Contact our Estate Planning Team
About Trustees Executors

Trustees Executors Limited was established in 1881 and is New Zealand’s first Trustee Company.
We provide a full range of financial and trust solutions to individuals, families and the corporate sector, including estate planning, trustee and investment advisory services.
We are a Licensed Financial Markets Supervisor and a leading provider of specialist Corporate Trustee and back-office fund administration services to some of New Zealand’s largest financial institutions, banks and fund managers. 

Copyright © 2024 Trustees Executors Limited – All Rights Reserved. No information or material can be copied or distributed without our express permission.

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