Around half of Australians don’t have a valid will. This statistic gets trotted out regularly, usually followed by warnings about intestacy or urgent calls to “get your affairs in order.” But the repetition hasn’t moved the needle. The number stays roughly the same, year after year, despite an entire industry dedicated to fixing it. The…
Here’s the problem with how we talk about estate planning: we’ve positioned it as something you do when death is imminent, when really it’s something you should be thinking about from the moment you start accumulating anything worth transferring. Most 30-year-olds don’t have an estate plan. Research shows that approximately 52% of Australian adults don’t…
When Steve Jobs died in 2011, most of the world mourned a visionary who had transformed entire industries. But there was something else remarkable about his death that received less attention: nobody knows exactly how his $7 billion estate was structured, and that was entirely by design. Not because Jobs was particularly enthusiastic about building…
The government’s October reversal signals a fundamental shift in how Australians should think about superannuation On 13 October 2025, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a substantial revision to the federal government’s controversial superannuation tax proposal. After two years of industry pressure and stakeholder criticism, Treasury walked back plans to tax unrealised capital gains within high-balance super…
Most Australians understand they should have a will. We insure our homes, our cars, even our mobile phones. We update our software, service our vehicles, and schedule regular health checks. Yet when it comes to planning for what happens after we’re gone, we freeze. According to Finder research from 2023, only 40% of Australian adults…
Spitting into a tube has become a rite of passage for millions of Australians. Consumer DNA testing services like Ancestry, 23andMe, and MyHeritage have transformed kitchen tables into genetics laboratories, revealing ethnic origins, health predispositions, and long-lost relatives with remarkable ease. What began as curiosity about family history has evolved into vast databases of genetic…
Australians now hold more digital assets than ever, yet the law barely recognises them. That gap is about to close, with clarity. The Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2025 proposes sweeping reforms for digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. With over 31% of Australians now owning cryptocurrency, this fundamentally reshapes how custody works and how…
Housing represents Australia’s largest family asset, accounting for approximately 60% of household wealth. Yet the inheritance outcomes flowing from this asset depend increasingly on geography. A median house in Sydney worth $1.1 million creates vastly different inheritance prospects than an identical property in regional Tasmania worth $400,000. Add migration patterns, holding costs, and practical challenges…
The traditional view of investment follows a predictable arc: accumulate in youth, preserve in middle age, and distribute in later years. Yet this linear narrative misses a fundamental truth about wealth. Capital doesn’t simply disappear at the end of life – it transforms, transfers, and begins anew. Research shows that inheritance represents not an endpoint,…
Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Estate administration in Australia involves two distinct phases that families often confuse. The probate grant itself takes just weeks to obtain. However, the complete estate settlement process stretches for months or years, creating significant costs and uncertainty for beneficiaries….
