WILLS & ESTATES
A Will is a legal document directing how your estate is to be administered and executed
when you pass away. Having a Will gives you the comfort of
knowing that your assets will be distributed and managed
according to your own wishes.
A Will is therefore a vital document that everyone should have drafted during their lifetime.
The importance of having a will is often underestimated and such underestimation is expounded
through current statistics which revealed that a substantial amount of South
African citizens do not have a will and therefore die intestate.
We will briefly highlight some of the important advantages of having a valid Will drafted for yourself.
When you draft a Will you have the benefit of nominating an Executor of your choice.
Such Executor will oversee or tend to the administration of the estate as per his/her duty (after he accepts such nomination).
Having a nominated Executor administer the estate hastens the process of winding
up the deceased estate resulting in no unnecessary delay in your heirs obtaining their inheritance.
When one dies intestate (without a Will) the beneficiaries of the deceased would have to collectively
agree on a nominated Executor and this in turn can be disastrous if there is no meeting of the minds as
to who such Executor should be.
The consequences of dying intestate can be even more ominous if the deceased left no surviving spouse,
major child, or
parent available to accept the appointment as Executor, and in such an event the Executor would first
have to obtain a bond of security
through an insurance provider before being granted authority to act as Executor in the deceased
estate
. This leads to a delay in the
appointment of the Executor as such Executor will only be appointed once the Bond of security is obtained.
Intestate Succession is governed in terms of the Intestate
Succession Act and if the deceased was married OUT of Community of
Property, with children then the surviving spouse can expect to inherit either R125,000.00 or a
child’s share of the Estate, whichever is the greater amount. This is done through operation of the
law and the distribution of your assets in such a manner may not be to your actual wishes.
All of this however can be avoided through the drafting of a valid Will.
The residue (balance) of such Intestate Estate
will be inherited by the deceased's
children and if such children are minors, their respective inheritances will be paid and kept into the
Guardian’s Fund which is administered by the Master of
the High Court.
Another benefit of drafting a will is the fact that you may direct that a Testamentary Trust be created
for the benefit of your minor
children which will protect their Inheritances and also ensures that same will not be paid into the
Guardian’s Fund. Within such Trust you
may stipulate the ages at which your children will receive their respective inheritances thus preventing
any irresponsible spending by young adults or teenagers. A Testamentary Trust can also be used to
protect certain beneficiaries who you believe
are not in a position to administer their own financial affairs.
Where the deceased dies intestate and was married IN Community of Property, the surviving spouse will
receive half of the joint matrimonial estate. The other half of such matrimonial estate will form part of the deceased estate.
The surviving spouse in addition to his/her half of the joint matrimonial estate will receive a child’s share or R125,000.00
(whichever is the
greater amount) from the deceased estate. This may be problematic if the deceased spouse had
surviving children from previous marriages or if the deceased estate only has R125 000, then that
full amount will be inherited solely by the surviving spouse leaving the deceased's surviving children
with no inheritance at all.
It is therefore imperative whether you own a substantial amount of assets or not that you draft a valid Will during your lifetime.
in order to avoid the above-mentioned default legal positions from occurring.
You may contact our offices if you require any assistance in drafting your Will or
administering the Deceased Estate of your loved one.
