Alex Simeonides — Capital Legacy Wills And Trusts

What's your dream? What's your goal? What's your motivation? What's important to you? What's your passion? What can you do to change the world? This is what's involved. Conversations with thought leaders and change makers from around the world. Hear stories of hope and inspiration to help motivate people like you to live your life. Find your passion, and live your dream. Together, we can all bring positive change to our world. And now, here's your host, David Watts. Once more it is, what's involved in this particular edition is currently brought to you by Capital Legacy. And you're gonna find out why in just a bit. Because I've spoken to this gentleman before, and I thought, you know what? We need to find out more about that. So let me give you some background, and then I'll introduce you. Capital Legacy is the leading rules and a state specialist in South Africa. And we're gonna be finding out some more of that. Joining me is CEO of Capital Legacy, Alex Simeonides. Hi you, Alex. - Yeah, hey David, good in yourself, man. - Great, and I'm so glad, as I mentioned earlier on TikTok, to have you on the show. And just to put this out there, we're gonna be doing this every month for the next couple of months.

And the reason is, number one, you guys have something to share. Number two, when I've spoken to you before, I thought to myself, you know what? This is so important, and so many people don't really think about wills and estates right up until the time that it's kind of too late. And I have now had personal experience on a number of fronts with wills and estates and things that weren't set up properly, et cetera, et cetera. And let me tell you, it is a nightmare on top of that loss. So Alex, before we dive right into this, tell me a little bit about Alex Simeonides and how was your journey? How did you get to Capital Legacy? - Yeah, it's an interesting way to start there, David. So actually, I'm not an actor. I didn't study to be a businessman. I was actually at Amstel Financial Advisor by trade and currently a financial advisor by heart. So the story actually began with me being a financial advisor and being out there and looking after my clients. And naturally, when you're a financial advisor, you're doing things like life cover and you're dealing with this problem of death. And one of the things that you obviously tried to do as a financial advisor back in the day is, you want to do a will, you try to do a will, but there wasn't really anything available to us as financial advisors that was convenient for us and for our clients to get a will done.

You know, you had a few choices. You had the banks, you had attorneys, you had a few sort of trust houses that you could go to, but the process was just very cumbersome and it put a whole lot of advisors off. And as a result, their clients weren't really getting wills done. And hand on heart, you can go up to many financial advisors from maybe a decade ago and say, "Well, tell me how many of your clients do you truly actually have done a will that you may have done a life policy?" And you'd probably find they would say about between 10 and 20%. And it was down to the fact that there was no dedicated provider to financial advisors to help them get wills done for their clients, but there was lots of ways for them to get life cover done for their clients. And so there was this sort of gap that happened. And then the story actually is a very sad one. One of my clients, and actually it was one of the very few clients I had done a will and was a will through one of the banks, I won't name them, actually had done a will for them and it was on the eve of the soccer world cup back in 2010. He was a molecular scientist at Cecil, young man, brilliant man. And yeah, I got the phone call here. He passed away in a car crash on the eve of the soccer world cup.

And he left behind his newly wedded wife, really literally they had been married, I think three or four weeks prior. And there's this little girl who's not very little anymore now actually. And we had actually done a will. And it was more of a luck that we'd actually had done this will, David. And so I was like, the sort of like grief that happened, but at the same time, the sort of relief from a financial advisor point of view that, oh, thank goodness I've done this will for them. And like I said, it was with the bank. And we then, we did the funeral and we did all of that. And then it was time to now start winding up the estates. And we got hold of the bank and we read the will. And then all of a sudden it hit me in the face. As a financial advisor and as a client, David, David, you're taught that there's a thing called an executive fee and it's a percentage, three and a half percent. And three and a half percent, David is... When I say it to you, it's not quite small, right? No, three and a half percent. You tip at a restaurant, 10, 15%. You pay estate agent, seven and a half percent. That's three and a half percent. And we never really applied our minds to it. And it hit me in the face when all of a sudden the invoice had a random out.

The three and a half percent multiplied by the estate value became this very real, random out. And it became real, became super real. And it actually caused a lot of friction between myself and the widow because she kind of blamed me for setting her up with this huge fee and this big bulky bank who is now there to wind up her loved one's estate. And sort of that sort of passed. But then the idea dawned on me that maybe there's a space for us to create a company that can go out there and help financial advisors to help their clients get wills done and actually take care of this executive fee through a policy, almost pay it forward kind of idea that no one then needs to get a surprise at the end and shocked and have to dip into their pockets to actually just get their estate administered. And I suppose, yeah, the idea came to me and I sort of had the guts to reach out. And I still to this day, David, think a large amount of my stars were aligned at the time. And just sort of a whole lot of the right people said yes to me to start this fiduciary business that does insurance. And this crazy sort of 27 year old running around, getting it up and running. And I suppose the rest is history.

Clearly the idea was that there was this big need for wills and it was a big need for these executive fees to be taken care of through a policy. And 10 years later, we've got capital legacy. - And I think, I mean, it's a fantastic story, but and I can't stress this enough. People really don't pay attention to what's involved, no pun intended. When a loved one passes away because the bills just keep on coming. And there's all sorts of things that you really, really don't think about before that time is upon you. And you can oftentimes I've known people that have ended up and there wasn't enough money in the estate to actually pay off all of these various fees and duties and funeral and all sorts of things like that. And I think that is why what you offer is absolutely amazing. Now you say 10 years on, Alex.

How much have you grown? Because I think your growth story is also quite amazing. - Yeah, it's been a phenomenal 10 years. And I still remember our first business plan. We shot for the stars and we said, no, we would do a thousand wills a month by a third month. Look, nothing could have been further from the truth. It took us about two years to get there. But since then to give an idea, David, we've grown from a thousand wills a month to 14,000 wills a month. And in the short space of 10 years. So if you had to draw the growth curve, it's just been one of the South African success stories, to be honest. And it still surprises me to this day. I mean, David, we've gone from renting an office of 43 square meters here at the campus. And we actually wanted their success stories actually use us to pitch office space. Like we've got this lucky sort of horseshoe, but we were famously rated 43 square meters. I mean, now we've got just under 9,000 square meters of space that we rent across the country, just to house our staff. We've got just under a thousand staff that are out there servicing people, helping them get their wills, helping them wind up their states, helping them protect their fees.

I think we've got about 9,000 financial advisors. So it's really just been an incredible journey. And it's taken us all by surprise, myself included. No one, myself, my family, my friends actually expected it. So it really was just, hey, can we start something? Let's see where it goes. We think there's a need. And I suppose I'd always talk to these famous business stories where, if you set out to really go and try solve a problem, and you've got some sensible commercials behind it, and you're not just necessarily going out there to become super rich or super successful or super famous, but you're actually going out there because you've reacted to a problem and you do it with passion. I suppose that's half the solution to being successful. I still say to my staff and my peers, this has been a once in a billion opportunity and chance that we all have at Capital Legacy, and we should be grateful every day that we've given us this chance to be this amazing success story so far. - And to make a difference, because that's what you set out to do. And it's this whole concept of going out, finding a problem, solving the problem, but serving as well to be of service. Alex, a lot more I wanna talk to you about in the show.

So we're gonna move on to, when we come back, talking about, I mentioned fees, and I've had experience with this that left me absolutely gobsmacked. So when we come back, can we give us maybe some examples on that, and we'll then take it further. This is what's involved. My special guest is Alex Simeonides. He is the CEO of Capital Legacy. We'll be back in just a bit. - You're listening to What's Involved with David Watts. Have you been to our website? Check it out, www.whatsinvolved.com. And while you're there, click on the coffee mug icon and buy David a cup of coffee. He'll love it. - And we're back with my guest, Alex Simeonides, CEO of Capital Legacy. So just before the break, Alex, I was mentioning these fees and everything that's around it. And to me, until I had that experience, I had never really thought terribly much about wills and fees and stuff like that. I mean, somebody dies. If you're lucky, they've written down something where they've said, "I'll leave my pet goldfish to you and my prized teaspoon collection." And that's all been- - Don't joke, David. Don't joke, we have one of those. Don't joke, we have one of those. - It is way, way more than that. So talk to me about what kind of fees do we expect?

You mentioned there's a percentage as well, but what else are we looking at? - Yeah, so let's just first crystallize the first fee and the fee that I think most people have heard of, and that's the executive fee. That's the professional fee to wind up the estate. Look, it's three and a half percent of your estate. So if you've simply got a property and a car and maybe some other belongings, you're looking at an estate of about one to two million rand. Immediately, you're talking between 35 and 70,000 rand that needs to be found from somewhere just to pay for this much-needed professional to wind up the estate, okay? So that's your first fee, that's called the executive fee. If you've got a property, okay, and if you recall, when you bought your property, you had this whole process where you had this person called a conveyance attorney, and that conveyance attorney's job was to register the title. So if you cast your mind back to when you bought your property, there was this whole process that involved the title of your property. When you pass away, David, that title now needs to go to the people who are inheriting, that you said in your world who are inheriting. So again, you have this conveyance attorney that needs to make a comeback, a return, if you may, and you need to pay this conveyance attorney fee, which is also, in effect, a percentage of the value of the property.

So immediately, you can see that you've got two fees that you've got to pay just to get. Two fees you've got to pay to get. The third one that really, really, really blindsides and cripples people, but it's absolutely essential, is that when you pass away, and if you've got young kids, you have to create what we call a children's trust, or commonly known as a testamentary trust, 'cause you don't want their money to go to some errant guardian, or worse yet, maybe a government guardian fund, for example. And so you create these testamentary trust, and they're fantastic vehicles, David, they're absolutely necessary to look after the finances and the wellbeing as such of your kids. But there comes a fee on top of that, can range anywhere from, depends on the institution, but can range from 1% to 3% a year. And when you're trying to run these testamentary trusts, you really have limited cash to pay for the school fees and everything, and all of a sudden, you've got to pay for this much-needed trustee fee. And these can add up to hundreds of thousands of rounds, 'cause these trusts can run for 20, 30 years, you know, David. And then you've got all the other incidental costs, and they just quickly add up.

You've got this master's fee, which is essential, you've got advertising fee, you've got to pay for clearances on the property, you've got to pay for inheritance taxes, which can be substantial. So the bill can just mount, and very quickly, if you haven't taken care of the fees, and you haven't pre, while doing the will, thought about these things and paid it forward, per se, you can cripple an estate, and you can cripple the legacy that you're actually trying to leave to someone, 'cause they can't even get out the starting blocks, 'cause they've got to pay these fees, as it sounds like you've experienced, before they can even get and move on. And sometimes, David, it results in people having to sell stuff. Worst case, sell the family home. And that's why we say capital legacy. Do the will, do the policy, take care of it all upfront. Don't leave there to be the second-guessing, and take your chances, because you don't want that situation. We all go through these ebbs and flows of life there. You're on the up, you're on the down, and when you pass away on the down, it might be the case that you're heavily indebted, and it's just gonna make an insult to injury, and probably cost the legacy that you're trying to leave.

- Yeah, I know. And the other thing, and I just wanna say this from my side, and my experience, this whole idea of executives, of the will. So many times, people just go, well, we'll get Uncle Bob to do it. Uncle Bob's got some financial experience, or we'll get so-and-so to do it, or we'll ask the kids to do it. That, in my experience, is really, really not a good idea. You need professionals. - You absolutely need professionals. Even down to some attorneys, people get good at their jobs. People specialize, right? And like I always say, does Bob or your attorney know where the master's office is? And the answer's no. They're the wrong person to be rejected because that's where it begins, right? You need to go fight the fights at the master's office and get things done. If you don't know how to get, for example, a certificate of balance from a bank, you can't get out the starting blocks, how to cancel a medical aid, how to deal with a firearm legally in a safe manner. There's so many nuances. I mean, even the transfer of property from a deceased estate, David, is different to when you do a transfer of property when you're alive. And we actually only work, for example, with conveyance firms who specialize in the transfer of deceased estate property.

So it's a very specialized field that you can't really, I mean, you can study for, but you really need to have had experience and know where to turn. Because every estate, David, is actually a court case. It gets a case number. And like any court case you can imagine, David, they're different. They're different in every way. And they all have their own unique things that need to be dealt with. And again, you need an experienced professional that can do it. That's not to say, and my personal will has this, that you shouldn't have Uncle Bob there. We actually encourage you to appoint us, for example, and Uncle Bob, because it's good to have that piece of mind that you've got that close family member

providing some kind of oversight and guidance to the professional executors. So certainly I encourage people if you, certainly if you've got like a quite a substantial estate or quite a complex estate to have two executors to provide that check and balance for your beneficiaries. - Yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense. Alex, now in terms of this plan that you have to deal with these expenses, because there's all sorts of upfront costs as well that you don't even think about. You know, funeral arrangements, that last minute hospital ambulance fees, whatever the case may be. Your plan, does that cover all of that? - So I think just for the listeners say, what's important about what we've built is that capital legacy is the end-to-end owner and provider of all the solutions. We don't outsource the insurance or outsource the estate administration or outsource the will. Everything along the line at Capital Legacy is owned and run by Capital Legacy the way we feel beneficiaries and you as a client should be treated. That enables us to then take care of everything from the will, the amount of cash that you need for the funeral, the overheads in the estate, like the Medicaid and the school fees to the executor and the trustee fees, which we use internally, a phrase that we indemnify those fees to a live cover payout that can pay for the, to cover the bond or the taxes.

So it really is a complete solution, this legacy protection plan we've created that includes the will, the will includes the things like the, the testament you trust that you may need, that has the insurance benefits, that ultimately has the estate administration all under one roof, which we call, which we say it's integrated, nothing's outsourced. So that's, you know, it's very similar to like Apple, it's in a closed system, so we can make sure everything works together perfectly. - Which also makes a lot of sense to me. Now, in terms of this Capital Legacy protection plan, does that get, that gets worked out in terms of what the will says? 'Cause I can't just come to you and go, listen, I'd like one of those protection plans, please. Could you just, you know, tell me how much it is? And, you know, like some of these things you'll see where it'll be cents per day or whatever the case may be. How does that get worked out? - Yeah, you can't, David, you can't do it that way. So the starting point for us is we do your will with you. We believe in the power of consultation. We've got now about 120 consultants nationally that we ask. So if you come to us and you say, maybe you get, maybe you come across us on Facebook or through your financial advisor, we will ask you to please have, to give us 45 minutes of your time for one of our trained consultants to sit with you and ask you about your will and craft your will there with you.

And that will, because, you know, you're out there, right? You don't know what you don't know. So if you try to do the will yourself, you might not know that you need to create a testamentary trust or not. You might not know that you should maybe have a co-executive or not. You might not know that this kind of benefit you wanna leave someone might not be possible. And so, you know, you're leaving gobbledygook. And that's what the job of our consultants is to do. First and foremost, help you get all those thoughts in your head down on a piece of paper that is in a succinct, simple, clear, executable will that we can actually follow through on what your wishes are. The will will then reveal what your kind of costs are going to be, executor, trustee, conveyance. And we can quickly calculate those in a matter of seconds with you so that we can find the right level of protection that you need and say, okay, well, you know, it's gonna be 87 rand a month where it's gonna be 187 rand a month. It just depends on the complexity and the size of your estate. Interestingly, David, there's no obligation for you to actually take this policy with a monthly premium. True to our mission is that you can just take the will with us.

You don't even need to appoint us as the executor. We will still, you can get the will for free with us because remember our mission is to first and foremost get more wills out there that are valid and then to drive down the cost of a state's administration. And so we don't want to detract from our core mission. And you don't even need to appoint as an executor. You don't need to pay for that will. And then when you pass away, that family can come to us and we'll still wind it up at a 25% discount because we're trying to drive down that cost. So that's, and a lot of our clients end up in that solution because maybe, you know, the monthly premium, they just can't afford. At least we've done something. We've helped them get a will. We've helped them get 25% off the costs. - Well, that is, it's incredible. And I gotta tell you though, just have a look at this capital legacy protection plan because I've been there a couple of times now over the last few years and it's not a place you want to be at and worry about these kinds of things. This is what's involved. My special guest is Alex Simeonides. He is the CEO of Capital Legacy. When we come back, I want to find out why this whole will thing is so important.

So more from Alex when we get back. Hey, like what you're hearing? Share the podcast with your family and friends and spread the word. This is what's involved.

- It is what's involved. We're back with Alex Simeonides. My special guest, he is the CEO of Capital Legacy. And we're gonna be doing these kind of chats over the next couple of months. And I'll give you an email address as well during the course of the show where you can send any questions you might have. I know we've got some questions. Let's hope we get to those at the end. Otherwise we'll have to try for next time. But Alex, your core business has always been wills. That's basically where it started. Why is it so important to have a valid will in place? - Well, David, there's the official response that a company like ourselves or people who are involved in the fiduciary business can give you. But let me maybe try to help the listeners understand from what we experienced on a day-to-day basis. 'Cause we have people who come to us or families who come to us where there hasn't been a will. And if I had to try to summarize it very quickly, what I see in families who come to us when there's been a will is there's just complete directionless and there's been a huge amount of confusion and there's been a huge amount of time delay. And these things have cost the family dearly because things needed to get paid, life needed to continue.

And it kind of detracted or didn't kind of it, absolutely detracted from that grieving process that they should have gone through. And when you pass away, the will is there to deal with the finances, David. But there's also this need to also grieve. And if you haven't got a will and you'd be focused and now you're trying to figure out what the next steps are and there's no will to guide you in terms of the next step, who's the executor, who's gonna do this now important work, you never get around to the grieving process. And this is something I always see in the families that come to us. Another thing that we see and it's a disaster is that families come to us where there's no will and there's kids, kids under the age of 18 and there's a property and there's cash. And because there's no will, no testimony trust has been created. And because of that, the kids will inherit, they'll inherit something from the estate. We have a fancy term called interstate succession in our country, so there's a predetermined inheritance if you haven't got a will and the kids will get. But they won't directly get because under age of 18, right? Manas, David. So it has to go to the government's guardian fund and the guardian needs to hold the property in a state of custodianship.

That means you can't sell the property, you can't rent the property. That means the cash, they're gonna go apply for every month in this kind of UIF top two and it's really a disaster. And yeah, it's just not practical in a way that you want to proceed. And the last thing is that I mentioned it now, there's this forced or predetermined inheritance if you don't have a will. I bet you now that's not what you wanted. It's not what you want and who you wanted to get. You may want everything to go to your spouse who will then look after your kids. You may want everything to go to your kids who will look after your spouse. You may want to divvy it up. Maybe this person gets this, this person gets that. If you don't do a will, we can't do that. We have to follow the law that says, we must go according to these percentages. And you lose that opportunity. And I think the other thing is, we mentioned it earlier in the interview, you lose the ability to choose your professional executor, the firm or the entity or the individual your family can run to and seek professional advice while they are trying to wrap up and wind up your affairs. It's gonna be some court appointed person on behalf of the family.

You don't know them. You haven't had the chance to have a conversation with them prior to your passing. So all the errors point to, I mean, why not do a will, but yet, wills aren't being done, David. Will's just, you know, I'd like to think we've made a big dent in it since we began, you know, we're doing 14,000 wills a month now. And I can tell you now, our peers who, you know, also offer wills, they haven't gone backwards in terms of the number of wills they were doing. We've merely entered the market and now got people who weren't doing wills to do wills, you know, so we haven't taken their lunch. So we've got part of that fact, actually, that we now are getting out there and making it easy for people to get wills and avoid these problems that I've just explained. - Yeah, well, let me show you something. One of my experiences with you is my uncle, who was my mom's brother. He had assets in bank account, et cetera, et cetera, overseas. He'd just started building a new house in Neisner. And his idea was that he wanted, when he passed, that his daughter and my sister share everything 50/50, all right? Unfortunately, it's one of these things that I think we all, a will, I think, to people, kind of, you know, is acknowledging that you're not gonna be here forever.

And he had gotten so far as to go to some lawyers to draft up this revision of his will. It was there, it was ready. He got COVID and sadly he passed away. That change of will was never ever signed. All they could find was an old will that was dug out somewhere. And it turned out that my cousin was then going to, his daughter was then going to inherit everything. And it's a case of even though you know what his wishes were, and he made it very clear to everybody before he passed away. But the law says that she gets the whole lot. And that is absolutely not what he wanted. And if he'd known what was gonna happen, he would have taken care of that. And it's been an absolute nightmare, that particular ride, let me tell you. Alex, we've got some time still. And I think when we come back, wow, we need to wrap up, 'cause I've got a couple of questions from people as well that I'd like to be able to chat to you about. So let's continue this discussion when we come back. It's what's involved. My guest is Alex Simeonides. He is the CEO of Capital Legacy. Backing it a bit, wrapping it up with him. - We'll be right back with more What's Involved. David would love to hear from you. To leave a voice message, visit what'sinvolved.com and click, drop me a voice note.

- And we're back with Alex Simeonides, CEO of Capital Legacy. So if you don't have a will, Alex, I explained to you just a little earlier on exactly what happened in our instances, but what else can go wrong or what other consequences are there? - Of not having a will. - Yeah. Well, I think the biggest problem comes in and it was my last point and it's a runoff consequence is when you haven't been in control of who's going to be the executor, this sort of, what happens is these vultures come and land on these estates and all of a sudden the fees get out of control 'cause this one's charging for this valuation and that additional service and this fee and because there's just no control, nothing's been pre-agreed upfront and they literally come and feed off of these estates. It's really not a great feature in our industry, but it happens every day. The other thing is we've seen people that have been left destitute. Very similar fashion to yours where, sure there was a will, but no will and for example, this one family we had to help recently, the guy was really looking after his parents and they were in dire need of his financial support. And let's just say his wife and his parents didn't really get along and I think she was a bit miffed because a lot of the family money was going towards being redirected to looking after his parents.

And he passed away, he didn't have a will. The law says because you don't have a will, it goes equally to the spouse and kids and the parents were completely cut off and the parents couldn't survive. And I don't know what, I don't want to know what's happened since, but there was this long history of his parents needing this financial support and I'm not saying what was right or wrong, but the person's ways of his life was distorted by the fact when he passed away, it wasn't continued. And I don't believe that was what his wishes were. You could see it by his actions while he was alive. So that's another catastrophic event that we've had to experience. - Yeah and it's sad because it can create rifts in families and there's feuds that'll happen and all sorts of things. Also, if you die, and I believe is the correct term, intestate? - That's it, intestate, no will. - It can take a long time to eventually wrap that up. - Yeah, it absolutely takes a long time, mostly because you've got people running around like chickens without heads. No one knows where to go, who to go to, where to start. So that's always the underlying cause of the delay when you pass away without a will. - Okay, Alex, in terms of that now, 'cause a lot of people are listening and I was one of these people, I went, I've got a will, they made me write out a will back when I first took out a life insurance policy.

So I got a will, do I need to look at it again? But you do, how often should you update or look at your will or just see if your wishes are different than they used to be? - Look, I mean, you've got your head boys and head girls in this world, David, you are going to put a diary notes in and December or January, for example, religiously go and review their will, review their policies. And there are select few in this world who will do that. I always recommend that you have a, at least a one-year review of your will together with your policies, because you don't realize how quickly things change in a year, how your feelings towards people change within a year. But the reality is not many people actually do that. So what I then say to people as a compromise is life-changing events, right? Have you bought a sold a house? Have you become a proud new parents or parents of a new child? Have you got married or divorced? Have you lost someone? Have you gone through the loss of someone? These are your broad things that you should use as trigger events to go, hey, you know, I probably need to look at this will, dust it off, review it as a sort of compromise. If you just leave it sitting there collecting dust, even within a year, my own personal experiences, stuff changes and you almost become as irresponsible not updating your will as not leaving a will behind because you can have almost said the wrong things because you just left it outdated.

- Okay, well, listen, I wanna just try and get in a couple of questions that we've been asked. As I mentioned, if you have any questions regarding wills and states and trusts and those kinds of things, let us know. And all you gotta do is send an email to what's involved. That's W-A-T-T-S involved at capitallegacy.co.za. And then the next time I have Alex on the show, we're about to have a chat to him about that. One question that I've got, it came in from Colleen, is what did she say? Oh yeah, I'm in my late sixties and I have a will. Is it too late for me to get the actual capital legacy protection plan? - So answer is no. We've actually got a product that's designed for exactly the situation. If you're familiar with life insurance, obviously it gets expensive and then really expensive the older you get because you're getting older. So we've got this particular product that's designed exactly for the situation that doesn't go up according to your age. It goes up by inflation only. And so it can be affordable all the way through. David, we've seen a lot of longevity. We've seen people living 90, 90, 100. And you don't wanna be stuck with this sort of life policy that you can't afford.

You invested all this money over time and then you can't afford it but the last minute you cancel it and then there's no benefit. So the design of this product is to get around that problem altogether and help. I think you said Colleen get at least 90% of her fees protected for really something that costs less than a muffin and a cappuccino at Mug and Bean each month. - Well, that is fantastic news. Next one in from Vanessa. Vanessa says, "Does my will override my marriage contract?" - Yes, that's a question we get a lot. So the answer is no. The answer is a very hard no. Your marriage contract is your marriage contact and whatever you do in your will, the marriage contract will stand. In addition to that, just to maybe add insult to injury to Vanessa's question is you cannot also disinherit your spouse. If your marriage contract doesn't actually provide for anything, if you've got to answer nuptial with no accrual just to be technical and you try to disinherit your spouse, your spouse can come at the executives with a very valid what we call spouse claim. So if you are in that kind of situation, you're gonna need to sit with one of our consultants and your financial advisor and look at doing at least something to make sure that that doesn't happen to you, so no.

- Okay, interesting, interesting. Ross wants to know what a living will is. - So a living will is first and foremost actually a wish more than anything else and it's the document that people use when say you're comatose and you're not coming out of it and they need to invert a commerce pool or plug.

The reality is and I've personally experienced it, David was my father, is that the hospitals in this country and the doctors in this country don't really follow it. They don't see it as like they do maybe in America, they will just sort of make the passing of that individual, not be of a suffering nature, but they're not necessarily gonna go and pull the plug. But so yeah, a living will is something where it says, you know, pull the plug if I'm not around, but in effect just the cautions as I Africans from my own personal experience and I stand to be corrected here, but my own personal experience says they don't actually work if that's what you wanted. It's not how our medical fraternity actually work in South Africa. - All right, great point there. Now, we've been talking about rules and what the service you guys provide. And one of the questions here is, how much does it cost to draft a will? Are you still offering that service as a free service? - There is absolutely no charge to do a will. There's also no catch. You don't have to point us as the executor. We've kind of driven the industry now to that, I mean, but there still is between any 500 and two and a half thousand and if you go to, for example, an attorney, some banks, for example, will waiver the fee, but they insist that they're the executor so that they can predate and get that three and a half percent from your estate.

So the fees can range, you know, so the big question I think the person needs to ask here is there might be a fee or no fee for the will, but what are my fees when I die? Because that's the big cost. - Okay, final one, we've got time for this. And I think we did kind of answer it earlier on, but Anneliese says, can I appoint more than one executor to my will? - Look, you don't want too many chefs in the kitchen, right? But yes, you can absolutely appoint more than one. I always encourage, like I said earlier, people to appoint a family member or friend of the family, the family accountant, if you may, and then a professional estate administration firm, because that family member won't necessarily be involved day to day in estate matters and know that the shortcuts that are absolutely necessary to try to take the pain out of the process, nor do they probably have the time to sit there on the phone and fight with the bank to get your bank balance. And that's what firms like ourselves are built to do. - Wonderful stuff. Well, it wraps it up. Alex will be joining me again next month. And at that particular chat, we're gonna be talking about estate administration. So the processes and factors that can delay the winding up of a deceased estate.

And again, from personal experience, something you think might take a couple of months can most definitely not take that. It can take considerably longer. So if you've got any questions related to wills and estates, and you'd like to put them directly to Alex and we can get him to answer them, send that email to what'sinvolved@capitallegacy.co.za. That's W-A-T-T-S-I-N-V-O-L-V-E-D at capitallegacy.co.za. Alex, thank you so much. Before I let you go, how can somebody who's listening to this chat, whether it be in the podcast format or live on the radio as we speak, how can they go about getting hold of you guys, finding out more about what you do and about that legacy protection plan? - Easiest and the best is to visit us. You mentioned it at Capital Legacy.co.za. You can't miss it. There's a big, big block that says, "Hey, I'd like to have a consultation." And earlier I said, "We recommend a consultation." You just give us your name and your contact number and one of my ladies will give you a call to book an appointment with one of our will specialists. That won't take you longer than an hour. It can be at the convenience of a virtual meeting or face to face, no matter what, we can do it.

- Fantastic stuff. So that's capitallegacy.co.za. Alex, thanks so much for taking the time out today. We really, really do appreciate it. - Thank you, David. - There we go. That wraps up this edition of "What's Involved?" Probably brought to you by Capital Legacy. They're all about estates and worlds. You need to go and check it out. Capitallegacy.co.za. To each and every one of you, look after yourselves, take care, and thank you for listening. - Thanks for listening to "What's Involved." We hope this episode inspires you to find your passion and live your dream. Don't forget to rate, review, and share the podcast. And to see what's happening, what's going on, and what's coming. Follow "What's Involved" on Facebook and Twitter at "What's Involved." Thanks again for listening.