Dealer Groups implement Estate Planning in their group,

Advisers make Estate Planning a key income driver for their practice and

Develop a community of professionals across Lawyers, Accountants, Tax advisers and Financial Planners, who are all focussed on serving clients.

A full list of services will be available on the website soon!

The Problem, The Result, The Solution

The Key Problems:

• Since the abolition of death duties in the 1970's the professions reduced their focus on estate planning as a professional service. In our estimation, fewer than 3000 practitioners are left across the accounting, tax, legal and financial service professions with sufficient skill and experience to practice in this area at a specialist level.
• Until now there have been no recognised occupational standards for trust and estate specialist professional practice in Australia.
• With rising wealth and longevity in the community over the last 35 years, there has been a reduced focus on the processes of protecting and preserving investment capital so that it can benefit multiple generations.
• With the advent of broad based superannuation in the community, a will is insufficient to deal with post death estate succession for all superannuated workers in this country.
• With the advent of increased community longevity, planning for disability and incapacity before death is as important as post death planning.
• As the current world economic crisis continues, families and their associated businesses are challenged to hold on to sufficient wealth to fund the retirement of their eldest members. Younger family members as a result have a reduced inheritance expectation to support their financial security.

The Result:

• There is increased community interest in keeping family wealth in collective ownership to concurrently support and maintain multiple generations of a family.
• The post WW II baby boomer generation are in, or nearing, retirement age with the majority having little or no estate planning.
• Billions of dollars in family wealth is going to transfer to the next generation with little planning.
• This represents a considerable risk to the value of a financial services firm through loss if its funds under management.
• The aging transition of advisers and clients, if not tackled, is a threat to the future value and viability of advice businesses.
• If managed correctly, this same threat can be turned into to a highly productive opportunity through the challenging times ahead.

The Solution:

• A shift in the focus of personal and family wealth management to a broader agenda. Clients need to consider whether or not they are managing their wealth solely for themselves or for the benefit of others.

• In managing a person's estate for the benefit of others, advisers must be prepared to deal with:
  
  1. Defining with the client the extent of their accountability to other people, causes and legal systems.
  2. Establishing appropriate structures to manage the client's wealth and deliver the benefits to 3rd parties that their client intends.
  3. Assisting clients to manage the consequences of their disability.
  4. Ensuring that financial, investment and taxation advice is tempered with an understanding of the client's estate administration objectives.

Estplan is a package of services that have been developed by experienced industry practitioners to help professional advice firms, client advisers and estate practitioners do this.