Why Estate Planning Is About More Than a Will

Quick Answer

Estate planning is not simply about deciding what happens to your assets after you pass.

It is about creating one continuous plan that helps ensure your wishes continue to guide what happens as life and circumstances change.

While you are able to make your own decisions, you remain in control. If illness or injury means you cannot make certain decisions, people you have chosen may be authorised to act for you. After you pass, your Executor and, where appropriate, your Trustee continue carrying out the arrangements you have made.

The people responsible may change.

Your intentions should not.

Estate Planning Begins With Your Wishes

A Will is an important part of estate planning, but it is not the starting point.

The starting point is understanding what you want to achieve.

You may want to:

• protect your partner and family;
• make sure your children are properly provided for;
• choose who can make decisions if you cannot;
• protect an inheritance for younger or vulnerable beneficiaries;
• reduce unnecessary uncertainty or family disagreement;
• ensure that the people you trust are given the right responsibilities; or
• simply organise your affairs properly.

These are not questions about legal documents.

They are questions about your wishes, your responsibilities and the people you care about.

The legal documents come later.

Their purpose is to turn your intentions into arrangements that can continue to operate as life and circumstances change.

One Plan Through Different Stages of Life

Estate planning is often thought of as something that operates only after a person passes.

A complete estate plan begins much earlier.

While you are able to make your own decisions, you remain responsible for your affairs and in control of the choices affecting your life.

However, illness, injury or a loss of capacity may mean that someone else needs to make certain decisions on your behalf.

The people you have chosen may then be authorised to manage financial or property matters, or to make personal, lifestyle and treatment decisions, depending on the authority you have given them.

Where the need is temporary and you recover, you may resume making those decisions yourself.

After you pass, responsibility changes again.

Your Executor administers your estate and carries out the instructions contained in your Will.

Where assets are to remain protected or managed over time, a Trustee may continue administering them for the people you intended to benefit.

The journey may therefore involve:

1. You making your own decisions.
2. Your Attorney or Enduring Guardian acting if required.
3. You resuming responsibility where capacity returns.
4. Your Executor administering your estate after you pass.
5. Your Trustee continuing to manage certain assets where appropriate.
6. Your beneficiaries receiving or benefiting from what you planned.

Different people may have responsibility at different stages.

Different legal documents may provide the authority they need.

But every part of the plan should be guided by the same underlying intentions.

Core Planning Question

Before considering which legal documents you may need, begin with one question:

What do I want to happen while I am able to make my own decisions, if I become temporarily or permanently unable to do so, and after I pass?

This is the starting point for a well-designed estate plan.

It helps identify:

• the wishes and outcomes that should be protected;
• the people who may need to act at different stages;
• the decisions those people may need authority to make; and
• the legal documents and arrangements required to support them.

The documents should follow from the answer to this question—not the other way around.