The decisions we will work through with you
Executors, guardians, gifts, and what does not pass under the will at all.
Your executor does the work: securing assets, applying for probate, paying debts and distributing. Choose someone organised and willing, name a substitute, and tell them where the will is. If you have children under 18 you can appoint a guardian, and it is worth having the conversation with that person first.
Then the gifts themselves, which can be specific items, fixed sums or shares of the residue, and where a beneficiary is young, vulnerable, or in a situation where a lump sum would be unwise, a testamentary trust can hold it instead.
Finally, the assets your will does not touch: superannuation, which is paid by the fund's trustee and needs a binding nomination if you want it directed; life insurance held outside the estate; and property you own as joint tenants, which passes to the survivor regardless of what your will says. Estate plans fail more often on those three than on anything in the document itself.
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