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Winding up an estate after death
A living will is very important in Roman Catholicism because it gives advance directives for health care, to provide the guidance and authority needed to implement your decisions when you cannot speak for yourself.
The Constitutional Court has declared laws governing primogeniture - which allows complete inheritance by the eldest male descendant –to be unconstitutional and invalid.
According to statistics, almost 70% of people have not made a will.
This is a general form that names a Health Care Representative and grants authority to make limited health care decisions for you including, if you wish, the decision to refuse intravenous feeding or turn off the respirator if you're brain-dead
Who may make a will and what are the requirements
This is the document that lets you state what type of medical treatment you do or do not wish to receive if you are too ill or injured to direct your own care. (Among other things, it's the document you can use to be sure doctors do -- or do not -- "pull the plug.")
What if a person does not have the capacity to make his own difficult medical decisions?
Getting married in community of property is hazardous to your future. What to do about it.
An example of a very basic will
Persons married according to Muslim rites are spouses for the purposes of inheriting or claiming from estates where the deceased died without leaving a will.
When you must not register your home in your own name
Both are documents that allow you to give instructions about the type of health care you want to receive, including who should oversee your treatment if you are unable to speak for yourself.
If you have children but haven’t named guardians for them in your will, you may be setting your family up for a costly, even bitter custody process.
Duty payable on a deceased estate
When someone dies without leaving a will
Estate planning
is an essential part of financial planning.
Disposing of property after death
In recent years
trusts have become the buzzword in estate planning.
Dying without a will has major implications for both the deceased person as well as the family they leave behind.
Most entrepreneurs place much of their effort into meeting the daily demands of running their own business and then neglect to plan for what will happen to the business when they are no longer there to run it. And such a business could possess assets that represent a substantial slice of their estate.
The Cape High Court has ruled that a bursary that was set up to exclusively help fund white male University of Cape Town graduates to study overseas is racist and sexist
Unmarried heterosexual couples that live together should ensure that their estates are planned in such a way that their partner is protected.
To bequeath usufruct to someone is a common way of providing for your next of kin after your death, but people often forget that usufruct can place an enormous financial burden on the actual heirs to your estate.
Not reporting the death of a loved one to the Master of the High Court can have serious consequences further down the line with estates tied up in legal wrangling for months or even years.
If you are injured in a serious accident, and are on life support, what would you like your family and doctors to do with you? Creating a living will, with your wishes, and which designates a person to make medical decisions for you, can lessen the trauma for your loved ones.
The possibility that your parents may become unable to take care of themselves one day is not a pleasant thought, but it's vital to discuss it now so that you can help them carry out their wishes.
You might know exactly where everything is stored, and have the balances of all your accounts and investments at your fingertips, but those who are left behind in the event of your death may not.
The main objective of a trust is to acquire protection for personal or business assets. A properly drawn up trust will protect individuals and business owners from creditors should they face insolvency or liquidation
Protect your assets and take care of your family with a Living Trust. It makes good financial sense.
While most of us are aware of the importance of having a Will to take care of our finances and assets after death, many people fail to see the importance of drawing up a document of power-of-attorney. Should you become disabled, or mentally incapacitated, or even suffer a long-term illness or injury and be unable to manage your own financial affairs, someone needs to be in a position to pay your bills
The circumstances when the serving trustees have the right to appoint additional trustees in terms of a trust deed.
Reluctance to accept our mortality probably explains the high rate of intestate deaths in South Africa, many of which result in untold inconvenience and hardship for dependants. Even if you aren’t wealthy, you have an estate made up of assets and liabilities and a responsibility to your loved ones to ensure that your estate can be swiftly and efficiently settled, with the least possible conflict or confusion.
Is it better to purchase property in a company or a trust, or in your personal name?
This is a groundbreaking judgment which extends the right to inherit from a deceased husband's estate to women in Muslim marriages where there is more than one wife. The effect of the judgment is that the wives will be treated equally and their rights recognised for purposes of inheritance where the husband does not leave a will.
A spouse of a “marriage” by Hindu rites enjoys recognition by South African law for inheritance purposes.
Part of our offering is to ensure that your Last Will and Testament is drawn up correctly and that all aspects of your affairs have been taken into consideration.
On 15 July 2009 the Constitutional Court found that widows of polygamous Muslim marriages have the right to claim or inherit from estates of hubands who died without leaving a will
Act 11 of 2009, gives effect to the decisions of the Constitutional Court in Moseneke and Bhe (and other customary law of succession matters).
The SCA has ruled that a suicide note was intended to be an amendment of a man’s will
If you and your partner live together you should consider drafting a life partnership agreement to protect yourselves should your relationship come to an end.
If a person is sequestrated the assets of the solvent spouse automatically vest in the trustee of the insolvent spouse unless the solvent spouse demonstrates that such assets are his or hers, e.g. because they were his or hers before the parties got married or were acquired in terms of a marriage settlement.
In Hendrik Van der Merwe v Master of the High Court and others the Supreme Court of Appeals decided that an unsigned will was valid.
One of the most important things that a person needs to think about is death and how their assets will be distributed after their death. When a person dies, their assets will be distributed either in terms of their will (testate succession) or according to the rules of intestate succession, if the person has not left a will
Couples whose marriages are subject to the accrual system need to give careful consideration to the impact the accrual will have before the terms of their wills are given effect to.
The surviving spouse in a marriage dissolved by death has a claim against the estate of the deceased spouse for the provision of his or her reasonable maintenance needs until his or her death or re-marriage in so far as s/he is not able to provide therefor from his own means and earnings.
Case about widow who wrote her late husband’s will in her own handwriting
I recommend that you have separate offshore wills for every country in which you own offshore assets.
A welcome recent amendment to the Estate Duty Act gives spouses access to each other’s estate duty abatements and eliminates the need for the artificial use of structures such as trusts to achieve this objective. The amendment applies from 1 January 2010.
Mervin Messias explains the general principles
Trusts can have an important role to play in estate planning and will affect your decision on how much risk and investment life assurance you require, Harry Joffe, the Chief Legal Advisor of Discovery Life says.
Capacity to benefit under a will
If you die without a will, your estate will devolve in terms of the rules of intestate succession
