succession plan
While alter-ego trusts may be valid, ‘sham’ trusts fail to meet the requirements for validity in that they are essentially fake trusts designed to deceive others. As such, the test for determining whether a trust is a sham one is
Future dependants would include those people whom the deceased member did not financially maintain or support at the time of his death but who would have been maintained if he was still alive. Future dependants could therefore include unborn children
Life insurance policies can be used to create liquidity in your estate and to make financial provision for your spouse and/or beneficiaries. However, as with other estate planning tools, it is essential to correctly structure your policy so that it
Where the sole surviving guardian of a minor child passes away without having nominated a guardian in terms of their will, the responsibility falls on the State to appoint a legal guardian for the child/children, which is not an ideal
Through a Living Will, you can request that certain medical treatment aimed at prolonging your life can be withheld in circumstances where there is no hope of your survival, such as if you are in an irreversible vegetative state with
While identifying your heirs is important, it’s also important to nominate successive heirs to deal with the eventuality that one or more of your heirs predeceases you. If you are silent on what happens in such circumstances, your executor must
Endowments are complex investment policies that generally cater for investors with a marginal tax rate of 30% or more and can also make useful estate planning tools. As the policyholder, you can elect who the life assured and nominate beneficiaries
If you are left in a vegetative medical condition from which there is no hope of recovery, the onus will fall on your loved ones to make difficult decisions regarding your medical care – including whether to remove you from
Given the fact that you will be relinquishing control of your assets, you need to ensure that your trustees have the requisite skill and expertise to manage the trust assets. Remember, if you are setting up a family trust, you
If you intend to gift a larger amount of money to your child, it may be more effective to structure the inheritance as a loan whereby the loan account appears as an asset in your estate, thereby avoiding donations tax.
