Source : Perth Now news
With eight children and three wives, the sudden death of Vanessa Watson’s lawyer father left his estranged family floundering.
“He did a law degree and he never got a will,” she tells AAP.
“He was actually in court representing someone and he had a massive heart attack.”
With no will in place, there was also no way to know what Ms Watson’s father wanted done with his estate and how he wanted his funeral handled.
“He had eight children with three wives spread across the country, so it was very complicated,” she says.
“We were all floundering because we didn’t know and everyone had a different opinion.
“We didn’t even know whether he wanted to be cremated.”
Ms Watson also faced challenges accessing her father’s bank accounts and personal information after his death.
“I’m the oldest, so it became my job,” she says.
“I had to go and identify the body and I was given the death certificate.”
Ms Watson was also handed her father’s briefcase and diary, which at least allowed her to start unravelling his life and finances.
It involved visiting three banks where he had accounts and having to present his death certificate along with her own birth and marriage certificates so she could have his direct debits discontinued.
“I did so much running around, just doing all that paperwork, just to access money to pay for the funeral,” she recalls.
Then came the task of having to accommodate others, with Ms Watson having only met one of her half-sisters once before her father’s passing.
“Trying to do a funeral for a parent when you’ve got three different family groups, that was a challenge,” she says.
Her mother also died without a will but the estate was simpler to deal with because she’d remarried and her partner was living.
But her mum’s wish to have her body donated to science also became difficult to carry out, again, because there was no will, Ms Watson explains.
“People just don’t realise the implications of not having one.”
Litigation lawyer Paul Kheissy recommends having wills professionally written so people can explain their wishes to their loved ones and they, in turn, can properly understand their intentions.
“If you don’t, you’ll have no say in what happens with your estate and where your assets go,” he says.
Dying without a valid will tucked away in a top drawer and with no executor appointed is called dying intestate.
It can trigger costly disputes even among the most close-knit of families, as a rigid legal formula that follows bloodlines is applied to the distribution of the deceased’s assets.
“There’s always family cohesion until that time comes,” Mr Kheissy says.
“More often than not, it really turns really quickly and it becomes nasty really quickly.”
Estates can be eaten up by legal bills as loved ones battle each other over who should get what, and six-figure invoices are not uncommon if the disagreement reaches trial.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients say: ‘I never thought this would happen to my family and I never thought we would be fighting over money’,” says the Maurice Blackburn wills and estate team senior associate.
Each state and territory has its own intestate laws governing the distribution of assets.
Their fixed statutory formula generally follows a family tree, favouring relatives over close friends, carers and organisations the deceased may have had a strong affiliation with.
Under the legislation, surviving spouses may have to share the proceeds of an estate with stepchildren from previous marriages and assets may be passed on to relatives or former spouses who were estranged or had little to do with the deceased.
“It’s a blunt instrument – if your situation is simple, then it might be fine but if your situation is a little bit more complex, then it’s potentially going to be problematic,” says Curtin University Law School lecturer Rob Lilley.
A lawyer is usually required to help the family of a person who dies without a will apply to a court to start the process of appointing an administrator,” he says.
“That person will then take responsibility for collecting all of your property and then distributing it in accordance with the legislation.”
Usually, the person with the strongest claim to the estate gets the job but if this is contested by other beneficiaries, it can trigger a costly legal dispute.
“By the time you’ve gone through a hearing like that in court that might have already cost the estate ten or twenty thousand dollars, if not more,” Mr Lilley says.
Modern blended families, where a deceased may have had multiple marriages and children in different relationships across their lifetime, can also significantly complicate matters.
“We see relationships deteriorate quickly and very suddenly,” Mr Kheissy says.
“Where there’s no will, everyone’s got a different opinion or view as to what the deceased would have wanted rather than what it’s provided for in the Act.
“People feel that that’s not the right thing, it’s not equal, and then we have to say to them there was no will and this is the way the legislation works.”
The discomfort of contemplating one’s own death and the difficulty of deciding who should benefit and in what amount from one’s estate are some of the reasons people fail to get a will.
“It can be quite a daunting exercise because you really are asking … who deserves it? Who should receive it?” Mr Kheissy explains.
“People are a little bit scared to sort of deal with that head-on.”
Some people become detached from the issue, stating that it’s not their concern what happens after their death.
“But it is; you are leaving behind loved ones, you are leaving behind family and it’s already going to be quite a difficult, emotional and daunting task for them to deal with,” Mr Kheissy adds.
“Not having a will can make it harder.”
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