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When a will won’t cut it: Inheritance and super

  • September 19 2019
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Retirement

When a will won’t cut it: Inheritance and super

By Grace Ormsby
September 19 2019

People are accumulating a lot of wealth within their super without realising a legally binding will won’t direct where that money goes after their death, a chartered accountant has warned.

When a will won’t cut it: Inheritance and super

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  • September 19 2019
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People are accumulating a lot of wealth within their super without realising a legally binding will won’t direct where that money goes after their death, a chartered accountant has warned.

Coffin at funeral

Simone Palfreyman, of Palfreyman Chartered Accountants, has flagged that “even though you might have quite a good will set out that specifies who is going to inherit your money, that’s not binding on your superannuation”.

Calling it “a massive issue” that Australians need to be aware of, Ms Palfreyman said “clients need to be aware that they have to address their beneficiaries within their super fund as well as having their own will for assets outside of superannuation”.

Despite the need for greater awareness, the chartered accountant did consider that “it’s really a responsibility of the accountants and the financial advisers to basically inform the clients that they need to have considered things like a binding death nomination within their super fund”.

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In her practice, Ms Palfreyman outlined the first step for provision of estate planning is to recommend an individual to have a decent will, “and that they actually use a legal provider to actually do that will rather than doing an off-the-shelf, do-it-themselves version”.

Coffin at funeral

“We do recommend with their superannuation that they have binding death nominations and that they carefully review those binding death nominations because that’s what determines who will inherit the money if you do pass away — your super.”

It’s just as important a consideration for individuals controlling self-managed super funds, the chartered accountant flagged.

“If they’ve got a self-managed super fund, they’ve got to be very careful about who we’re going to be the replacement executive essentially for the super fund itself, because they control then who actually inherits the money from the super fund,” she explained.

“Weve actually found, unfortunately, that ASIC has made it quite difficult, with accountants not being able to provide as much super advice as we used to be able to, and a lot of people unfortunately dont want to pay the money to go see a financial planner or financial adviser.”

As a result, Australians aren’t actually being told that there’s these issues and “theyre just not aware”.

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About the author

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Grace is a journalist on Momentum Media's nestegg. She enjoys being able to provide easy to digest information and practical tips for Australians with regard to their wealth, as well as having a platform on which to engage leading experts and commentators and leverage their insight.

About the author

author image
Grace Ormsby

Grace is a journalist on Momentum Media's nestegg. She enjoys being able to provide easy to digest information and practical tips for Australians with regard to their wealth, as well as having a platform on which to engage leading experts and commentators and leverage their insight.

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