Simple Wills

Do you have a Will?

If not, it can be an expensive exercise for your family and loved ones to work though after you have gone.

A Will is the cheapest insurance you can have to ensure your things are passed on to those you want them to go to.

Around 30-40% of people who die do not have a Will. Having the High Court establish your estate intestate without a Will will cost over $15,000.

What is a Will?

A Will is a document that is recognised by the court as your wishes once you have passed on. A Will enables you to state who will receive your assets when you pass away, as well as who will manage this process for you when you are gone.

A Will also allows you to make other specific directions, such as:

The appointment of guardians for your children.
Specific gift assignment
Manage family heirlooms to ensure they are passed on within your family.

Simple Wills is a service is for creating basic/ simple Wills. These are common situations like Mum, Dad, & the kids.

Anything more complex than "I want my stuff to go to my partner or if there is no partner, my kids" is not what this service is about and you need to talk to a Lawyer who can provide you the advice you need.

This service is not suitable for blended families, family trusts or business structures.

If you go to the Simple Wills site directly they will charge $149 per person for your Will, which you are welcome to proceed with.
- I do encourage you to have a look at the Simple Wills website to better understand how this all works, but come back here for the link below.
For those that access this through our website, we cut that almost in three, If you use this link, you will get it done for $50+GST.

A couple of key things to consider:

Who is going to administer your will? This is the executor, for simple Wills your partner or trusted family member is usually ok.
- They will need to engage a Lawyer to assist at the time, but is cost effective in terms of management.
- If you have a more complex situation or you want to ensure that things go as planned where there may be family arguments or other issues, then consider having your Lawyer as a joint executor, so that you have the professional guidance while also having someone able to provide input.
Who is going to look after the kids if you both pass away?
- If you have younger kids then you need to consider this as it is a more acute risk, with older kids and teenagers, you may be confortable with the oldest sibling taking charge.
- Either way, this is one area parents don't always consider well; the decisions when the kids were born to have the grandparents take over may not be so easy now that a number of years have passed.

The Simple Wills process is straight forward:

You setup your account details and start the process.
Work your way though to the end with the questions asked, and it should provide you a good to go button.
You cannot access, print, or review your Will until it’s paid for.
- Mainly because at this point people skip out without paying for it; if you want it, you need to pay for it.
Once you have paid for it, you will receive a copy of your Will.
From there you need to sign it in the presence of two witnesses who are unrelated to you to make it valid.

If you can't get through this process, or it's not as simple as you thought, then you will likely need support and advice from a Lawyer in the estate planning area.

These Wills really are simple. That's the point.