A Guided Online Will or Tailored Estate-Planning Advice: Which Approach Suits You?

There is more than one way to put a Will in place.

For someone with straightforward family and financial circumstances, a guided online process may provide a practical way to document clear wishes. For someone with a blended family, business, trust, overseas assets or more complicated arrangements, tailored legal advice may be more appropriate.

The question is not whether one approach is better than the other. It is how much complexity your circumstances create and how much individual advice you need.

When might a guided online Will be a practical option?

A guided online Will may be worth considering when your wishes and circumstances are relatively straightforward.

For example, you may:

• know who you want to appoint as executor.

• have clearly identified beneficiaries.

• want to leave your estate in relatively simple proportions.

• have straightforward family relationships.

• not require complex trust, business or succession arrangements.

• be comfortable understanding and following the required signing instructions.

Even when your position appears simple, preparing a Will involves important decisions. You need to understand what you own, decide who should manage your estate and determine who should benefit.

The Will must also be executed correctly. Signing and witnessing requirements matter, and they can vary between Australian states and territories.

If you are unsure whether an online process is appropriate for your circumstances, seeking legal advice can help you avoid relying on a document that does not address an important issue.

How does the online option work?

LawOnline provides a guided online process for preparing Australian Wills.

You enter the relevant personal and estate information through its secure platform, prepare the document, then download and print the completed Will. The service provides instructions explaining how the document should be signed.

LawOnline offers different Will options, including a basic Will for certain straightforward circumstances and a more comprehensive Will that allows for additional choices such as trustees, specific gifts, guardians for children and funeral preferences.

For people whose wishes fit the available options, this can provide a convenient way to put a Will in place without beginning with a traditional face-to-face legal appointment.

When could tailored legal advice be worthwhile?

The more layers involved in your family or financial arrangements, the more important it becomes to consider how those pieces work together.

Tailored estate-planning advice may be worth considering if you:

• have a blended family or children from a previous relationship.

• want to provide differently for particular beneficiaries.

• want to exclude someone who may otherwise expect to benefit.

• need to provide for a child or vulnerable beneficiary.

• own or control a business, farm, company or family trust.

• are a trustee or member of an SMSF.

• have significant assets or beneficiaries overseas.

• want to establish a testamentary trust.

• have concerns about a potential challenge to your Will.

• need business succession, asset-protection or tax-structuring advice.

In these situations, the Will itself may be only one document in a much broader plan.

Your Will may not control everything

Some important assets can sit outside your Will.

Your superannuation does not automatically form part of your estate. How it is paid can depend on your beneficiary nomination, the fund's rules and superannuation law.

Property held as joint tenants will generally pass to the surviving joint owner rather than through the Will. Assets held within a family trust are usually dealt with under the trust deed, so succession may depend on who controls the trust rather than who is named in your Will.

Businesses and SMSFs can also involve separate documents and control arrangements.

This is why more complex estate planning often involves coordinating several pieces rather than preparing one document in isolation.

Where specialist advice fits

For people who need a more tailored approach, Hamilton Locke Private provides specialist estate and succession-planning advice for individuals, families and business owners.

Its services include Wills, testamentary and family trusts, powers of attorney, business succession and transition arrangements, complex trust advice, estate administration and estate disputes.

The aim of specialist advice is not to make an estate plan unnecessarily complicated. It is to identify the issues that a standard document may not resolve and make sure the different parts of the plan work together.

Start with the complexity of your own situation

A straightforward estate does not necessarily require an elaborate solution. Equally, an apparently simple Will may not be enough when family arrangements, super, trusts or business ownership sit behind it.

Start by looking at who you want to provide for, what you own, how those assets are held and whether anything important sits outside your estate.

Through moneyGPS, you can then explore a guided online Will through LawOnline or specialist estate-planning advice through Hamilton Locke Private.