Speaker 1: Yoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels, and this is a summer special of
Speaker 2: The Front Page, The Ends At Herald's daily news podcast.
Speaker 2: While the Front Page is on summer break, we're taking
Speaker 2: a look back at some of the biggest news stories
Speaker 2: and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: New episodes will return on January thirteenth. Losing a loved
Speaker 2: one is one of the worst things a family can
Speaker 2: go through, but it can get a lot worse if
Speaker 2: people start fighting over the wheel.
Speaker 1: Before the body's even cold.
Speaker 2: In June, we spoke to Enzied Herald's senior journalist Jane
Speaker 2: fed about the dos and don'ts when it comes to inheritance,
Speaker 2: including how you should go about getting your fair share
Speaker 2: and what you can do to make sure your final
Speaker 2: wish are clear. Jane, when we talk about laws and inheritance,
Speaker 2: how much of the decision making is in the hands
Speaker 2: of the person actually writing the will and how much
Speaker 2: is dictated by law.
Speaker 3: A bit of both, because the willmaker has specific wishes,
Speaker 3: but they have to do the will within the law,
Speaker 3: so only personal property can become part of the estate.
Speaker 3: So one way that people if they want to cut
Speaker 3: someone out of their will, perhaps a family member they've
Speaker 3: fallen out with. They can use a trust and that
Speaker 3: means that no one in the family can attack that
Speaker 3: trust if they're not a beneficiary. But that is something
Speaker 3: that the Law Commission want changed. They had a big
Speaker 3: review that came up with one hundred and forty recommendations
Speaker 3: about succession laws and inheritance, and they want the courts
Speaker 3: to have greater power to attack trusts.
Speaker 2: You've recently spoken to a number of legal experts about
Speaker 2: the intricacies of writing and contesting wills. What are some
Speaker 2: of the most common familial battles that can emerge when
Speaker 2: it comes to this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's the element of surprise.
Speaker 3: The people I spoke to, the estate planners and the lawyers,
Speaker 3: they recommended that you are transparent about your will, that
Speaker 3: you discuss it with your family, your children, so they're
Speaker 3: all aware there are no nasti surprises, and you tell
Speaker 3: them the reasons why they might not like it, but
Speaker 3: they probably won't react quite as violently as if they
Speaker 3: didn't know what was coming. One of the things they
Speaker 3: also said that is, if you are going to cut
Speaker 3: a child out, or someone who is expecting to inherit.
Speaker 3: They didn't recommend that. They morely as said, you have
Speaker 3: to show that you've discharged your moral duty and that
Speaker 3: you've thought about them. So a better way, they say,
Speaker 3: is to leave a normal amount. It might only be
Speaker 3: five thousand, or it depends on the size of the state,
Speaker 3: but you leave a nominal amount and also some documentation
Speaker 3: explaining why you haven't treated them equally, so that if
Speaker 3: it did go to the court, the court has an idea.
Speaker 1: What you're thinking was what are.
Speaker 2: Some of the worst will fights that you've heard about.
Speaker 1: Some of them go on for years.
Speaker 3: You have to go through the High Court and the
Speaker 3: High Court's backlogs, so you have to wait a long time.
Speaker 3: It can be incredibly expensive. Fifty one hundred thousand, but
Speaker 3: some of the lawyers I spoke to said way more
Speaker 3: than that, and it can go on for years because
Speaker 3: they just keep relitigating, and in the end, it's not
Speaker 3: really about the money. It's about them being hurt. It's
Speaker 3: about old family rivalries, probably sibling stuff that goes back
Speaker 3: decades that comes out after mum and dad are dead,
Speaker 3: And if they're not going to inherit, then no one's
Speaker 3: going to inherit. Because the estate gets whittled down with
Speaker 3: legal costs, the executives have to defend.
Speaker 2: So you've spoken to the experts. What are some tips
Speaker 2: to writing a will to ensure things don't go pear
Speaker 2: shaped after you die.
Speaker 3: Making sure that the will is up to date, making
Speaker 3: sure that the family are treated equally. That's the main thing.
Speaker 3: And if you're not going to that, you leave clear
Speaker 3: reasons why you're not. You need to think about step children.
Speaker 3: And if a step mother is left, whether your own children,
Speaker 3: in other words, the step children of the stepmother, they
Speaker 3: might fall out with her and attack the will, or
Speaker 3: vice versa. She might think that the children have had
Speaker 3: enough and they've been left too much and she hasn't
Speaker 3: been left. So it's all those sort of family dynamics.
Speaker 3: And if you don't get it right and the family
Speaker 3: do fall out, it causes bitter family divisions that are
Speaker 3: never resolved.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to making claims, who does and
Speaker 2: doesn't have the right to make one.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, the Law Commission, one of their recommendations, which I
Speaker 3: think will be quite controversial, is that they've recommended one
Speaker 3: of the options is that children over the age of
Speaker 3: twenty five will not be able to contest their parents' will.
Speaker 3: The Ministry say that they are a long way from
Speaker 3: even looking at those recommendations, so it's not going to
Speaker 3: happen anytime soon, but that is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 4: One of the options put forward by the Law Commission
Speaker 4: is that only children under twenty five can make a
Speaker 4: claim against their estate, and really it's taking into consideration
Speaker 4: the differences between the obligations of a parent to pass
Speaker 4: on an inheritance or look after their children versus actually
Speaker 4: the freedom of a person to make a choice about
Speaker 4: how they want their estate to ultimately be distributed.
Speaker 3: So who does have the right to claim against a
Speaker 3: will are children and spouses and long term partners, and
Speaker 3: in some circumstances step children if they've been supported by
Speaker 3: the willmaker during their lifetime, and even parents and grandparents
Speaker 3: who have been supported by the willmaker can make a claim.
Speaker 3: Those who can't claim a sibling, so a brother or
Speaker 3: sister can't claim against each other's wills, and adopted children
Speaker 3: they can claim against the parents who brought them up,
Speaker 3: but they can't claim against biological parents' will. And in
Speaker 3: the case of Fungi, where Maori children have been adopted
Speaker 3: out to a family member.
Speaker 1: There's been a recent case.
Speaker 3: In the High Court that failed, so fungi children can't
Speaker 3: claim against their biological parents.
Speaker 2: Why isn't it as simple as this is what the
Speaker 2: deceased person wanted.
Speaker 3: I think it's human nature that the children might behave
Speaker 3: when mum and dad are alive, they keep their the
Speaker 3: family bond in a way. But then all those rivalries,
Speaker 3: like mum always favored your dad always favored you. You've
Speaker 3: got a lot more help than me, you're more successful
Speaker 3: than me, I need the money more. All those sort
Speaker 3: of human dynamics come out, and you know where this
Speaker 3: money people behave really badly.
Speaker 2: Does the fact that there's so much wealth in this
Speaker 2: country tied up in property complicate inheritance at all?
Speaker 3: One of the interesting things that Patrick Gamble said, he's
Speaker 3: the CEO of Perpetual Guardian. He said that if estate
Speaker 3: planning is not done well and the will maker is
Speaker 3: not a clear will, he called it tumbling out of
Speaker 3: the middle class. So he was talking about the wealth
Speaker 3: of the baby boomers. A lot of the next generation
Speaker 3: and the generation after that are relying on that wealth
Speaker 3: to buy a home or pay off their mortgage. And
Speaker 3: if it goes wrong where they get cut out or
Speaker 3: the estate gets whittled away with everybody fighting over it.
Speaker 3: Suddenly you've got someone who was brought up, you know,
Speaker 3: in a reasonably wealthy family, expected to own a home.
Speaker 1: Can't.
Speaker 5: Society is always evolving and the way we live is
Speaker 5: always evolving, so you can I'm sure understand that the
Speaker 5: number of blended families is much higher now than it
Speaker 5: was seventy years ago. There's also an emphasis something anga
Speaker 5: Maori now and other cultural norms and making sure they're
Speaker 5: covered in the legislation. And also we're facing the largest
Speaker 5: transfer of wealth we've ever seen in New Zealand history,
Speaker 5: so the baby boom is over the next fifteen to
Speaker 5: twenty years, we'll leave around about a trillion dollars in assets.
Speaker 5: So you need to make sure that inheritance law is
Speaker 5: very tight. Make sure we'll get it right.
Speaker 2: What's the best advice for how to contest a will?
Speaker 2: I've thankfully not had to do that yet, hopefully never will.
Speaker 2: My brother and I usually get along, but how would
Speaker 2: I go about it if I did have to?
Speaker 3: You have to contest within a year of probate. So
Speaker 3: probate is where the will is more or less made
Speaker 3: an official document by the High Court, so you got
Speaker 3: twelve months, but they recommend it contesting it as soon
Speaker 3: as possible, because the executives can actually disperse the assets
Speaker 3: within six months of probate, so if there's nothing left
Speaker 3: to disperse, there's nothing left to fight about it.
Speaker 1: So the sooner the better.
Speaker 3: Lawyers more or less say don't go to court if
Speaker 3: you can, and most are settled out of court because
Speaker 3: everybody understands how much it's going to cost, so mediation
Speaker 3: is a possibility. The issue with mediation is it's not
Speaker 3: legally binding, so if they change their mind, it could
Speaker 3: still end up in court. And the other, I think
Speaker 3: better way is a deed of family arrangement, and that's
Speaker 3: where the executives and the family members and everybody is
Speaker 3: fighting actually come to an agreement to alter the terms
Speaker 3: of the well so that they say, yeah, fair enough,
Speaker 3: we'll give you ten grand to go away or whatever.
Speaker 2: You've mentioned the one hundred and forty recommendations that have
Speaker 2: been made by the Law Commission to tidy up these rules,
Speaker 2: how many of those have it been actually taken up
Speaker 2: and put into law or is it quite a process?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: None of them and it will be years. The only one,
Speaker 3: the only recommendation. It was actually one hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: nine out of the one hundred and forty is the limit.
Speaker 3: When someone dies and the estate is worth fifteen thousand
Speaker 3: or less, you don't need to go for probate and
Speaker 3: go through all the drama. You can just if you're
Speaker 3: a family member disperse that The Commission have recommended that
Speaker 3: that amount, I mean.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculously low.
Speaker 3: It was set in two thousand and nine, so they
Speaker 3: recommended that that amount be brought up to twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four level, or that it is adjusted to inflation from
Speaker 3: then on. That's the only recommendation that there's even been
Speaker 3: looked at. The issue is that the Commission also looked
Speaker 3: at the property relationship issue as well, and the government
Speaker 3: wants to look at both those together. It's a huge
Speaker 3: body of work. It will need consultation. You've got quite
Speaker 3: contentious issues like children under the adjud twenty five can't inherit,
Speaker 3: which are going to divide the community. So I think
Speaker 3: it's probably not in this decade.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: If you're thinking about creating a will and doing something
Speaker 2: before you die, and to make sure that your wishes
Speaker 2: are held up. Are there any other ways other than
Speaker 2: a will where you can make sure that your family
Speaker 2: members get what you want?
Speaker 3: The other way is to gift assets and money in
Speaker 3: your lifetime, and as a result, there's nothing really left
Speaker 3: or very little left to fight over in the estate.
Speaker 3: The only way that anyone could contest that was if
Speaker 3: they felt you'd done that under duress, or that you
Speaker 3: went mentally capable, that those sorts of reasons they could
Speaker 3: con yes. But other than that, you're free to give
Speaker 3: you two sons and a daughter assets and leave another
Speaker 3: one out.
Speaker 6: More than a third of older kiwis are not waiting
Speaker 6: until they die to transfer their wealth to loved ones.
Speaker 6: According to New Zealand's Seniors Report, fifty seven percent of
Speaker 6: those surveyed so they're worried about what they'll leave behind
Speaker 6: to their kids because of current economic challenges. Ninety one
Speaker 6: percent thought home ownership in particular is becoming increasingly difficult,
Speaker 6: especially for those whose parents can't help them out.
Speaker 2: I guess it's an incredibly interesting but also sad topic,
Speaker 2: isn't it, Because we're essentially talking about someone having wishes
Speaker 2: and doing a will, and then once they pass it
Speaker 2: could break up entire families. Have you seen in your
Speaker 2: research in your writing, is it generally quite upsetting?
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: I've written about this before. I've written about inheritance, and
Speaker 3: I've also written about how you pass the family batch
Speaker 3: and holiday home on to your children without them all fighting,
Speaker 3: and also the family farm. And every time I write
Speaker 3: those stories, I get emails and from people with quite
Speaker 3: sad stories that date back years, some of them, some
Speaker 3: of them back to the seventies, and they've never quite
Speaker 3: got over the fact that they fell out with their brother,
Speaker 3: or their sister was given more than they did, or
Speaker 3: a stepmother ended up with everything and she'd only been
Speaker 3: with a husband for five years and they lost all
Speaker 3: their mothers. China, all those sort of emotional stories has
Speaker 3: plenty of them around, And I know in my own life,
Speaker 3: I know some of my family friends who don't speak
Speaker 3: to each other as a result of falling out over
Speaker 3: the will, and so their children, the cousins grow up
Speaker 3: not knowing each other. Whereas when my parents died, my
Speaker 3: mother died first, but when my father died, he left
Speaker 3: really clear instructions. He talked to the three of us
Speaker 3: individually and together we had a family lawyer involved, and
Speaker 3: it was all done amicably and we're all it was
Speaker 3: a great experience.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: I know that my papa back in Adelaide has given
Speaker 2: us post it notes before he passes and where to
Speaker 2: put colored post it notes on things around the house
Speaker 2: that we want, so it can actually be quite a
Speaker 2: nice experience, you know, remembering that Papa wanted me to
Speaker 2: have the brown chest to field that I've always loved.
Speaker 2: You know, it's quite somber, isn't it. But also it
Speaker 2: can be translated into a quite nice experience.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, unless somebody swaps the post it notes or
Speaker 3: accidentally on purpose drops off.
Speaker 2: Unless my brother wants that chest to field after Papa goes.
Speaker 3: And someone and one in the family says, but she
Speaker 3: promised those pills to me as well, So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: better to write it down.
Speaker 2: I have to remember that next time I go home. Finally, Jane,
Speaker 2: reading a piece, it does seem that the overall advice
Speaker 2: is that contesting a will might cost more than it's worth, hey,
Speaker 2: and do more harm than good.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: So from the experts you've spoken to, what's the overall advice?
Speaker 2: Is it really worth kicking up that much for fast.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess the lawyers want you to because they're
Speaker 1: charging the fees. They get paid.
Speaker 3: They're the only ones that get paid. And it isn't cheap.
Speaker 3: I mean it is fifty to one hundred thousand. If
Speaker 3: there's only two hundred thousand to fight over, the estate
Speaker 3: has to pay similar legal fees on the other side,
Speaker 3: so they're paying fifty to one hundred thousand or more,
Speaker 3: so there's not much left to fight over it, depending
Speaker 3: on how many beneficiaries there are.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Jane. That said for this episode
Speaker 2: of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at NZ Herald dot co
Speaker 2: dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells
Speaker 2: with sound engineer Paddy Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
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Speaker 2: and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.