This article from the Sunday Times provides some examples of why having a Will in place is not only good for your own Estate but helpful to those remaining.

“… Harry spent 12 months trying to rectify the affairs of his brother, who died without a will.

The brother, who was a 56 year old bachelor, lived in New Zealand and was the ultimate procrastinator.  He never got around to joining his voluntary employer superannuation scheme, never got around to signing his will, even though the document had been sitting on his desk for  months, and also never got around to taking out travel insurance when he travelled to Brazil.

The absence of travel insurance is of significance here, because when he was in Brazil he died suddenly of a heart attack.

It fell on my friend to arrange for transport of the body back to New Zealand, where his father was living in a nursing home.  But there was just one problem – transporting the body home was going to cost $30,000.

This amount could be substantially reduced if the body was cremated and the ashes flown home, but under Brazilian law cremation is prohibited unless the will specifically provides for it. As there was no will, Harry had to make a special application to the Brazilian authorities through NZ solicitors.

This was no easy matter, because a police report had to be obtained.  Also, as the report was in Portuguese, it had to be translated for the benefit of the lawyers in NZ. All this time the body was lying in a morgue in Brazil.

Finally, after four months and $15,000 in fees, approval was given for cremation.

The brother’s only asset was a $600,000 house with a $250,000 mortgage.  So the total value of the estate would be about $300,000 once the house had been sold and his credit card bills paid off.

Now came the next problem.  Under NZ law, the entire estate of a single person goes to their parents if they die without a will.  This means the entire estate was supposed to be paid to his father, who was in the early stages of dementia and was paying very low fees in a state sponsored nursing home.  A sudden bequest of $300,000 could render him ineligible for this type of accommodation and he certainly was not capable of dealing with the sum himself.  He had given no enduring power of attorney to anybody.

Harry’s next job was to apply to the NZ court for permission to administer the estate.  This involved a NZ High Court barrister, an Australian lawyer, plus an additional lawyer for the father to avoid any suggestion of conflict of interest.  You can imagine the layers of fees this incurred.

Harry is well-off and did not embark on the task of setting things right for the sake of the money; he was merely doing his duty as the eldest brother.  However, as he points out, tens of thousands of dollars, and immeasurable angst, would have been saved if he brother had signed the will.  Ironically, the unsigned will left the estate equally between his father and his siblings.

Makes you think of the importance of having a will, doesn’t it?”