Capital Legacy — Trusts And Worldwide Wills

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 changemakers 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 now here's your host David Watts once again it is what's involved welcome good to have you along with us this particular edition of what's involved is proudly brought to you by capital legacy South Africa's number one wills and estates specialist and I'm joined at this time by the CEO and founder of capital legacy Alex Simeonides and we've been doing this over the last couple of months that's always good to learn more about this stuff how you doing Alex yeah I'm good David I'm really really good thanks for having me again it's always always a pleasure this month we said we're gonna be talking about wills and trusts and worldwide wills as well and when I think about that I mean you guys have blown me away right from the beginning because I thought you know you have a will you write on a scrap of paper and you tell people I will that's what I want you to have have a nice day but it doesn't work like that so let's get into this thing because by now I'm sure the people listening are all about capital legacy but maybe somebody's been under a rock and they don't know who capital legacy is and what they do so just give us another quick overview of capital legacy Alex no sure sure so David you know like I said before we've been going out for 10 years and in 10 years we've now done we've held 500,000 people with their wills and and that all comes from one simple mission and it's only that we we've crafted and recraft and that simply put to to make the loss of a loved one easier and it all begins with with getting the will and and I've given the subject matter we have on hand today and as you said it's not just about doing the will there's different roles for different needs and I'm glad you got the subject matter today because we get to talk about these bespoke wills that that may be right for you that we've created over these these last 10 years which is fantastic because I mean you know I'd like to think that we definitely are helping the listeners the public out there just to become more of a and and more familiar with wills estates estate cleaning because we let's be honest and I mean you've heard me say this a couple of times it's not something we like to do you know we don't like to think about our own mortality or what's gonna happen when we are gone now the first chat that we had we talked about why wills are important unexpected legal fees and the fact that these days it costs you to die which still does my head in last month we talked about winding up a disease to state today we're looking at trusts and worldwide wills so let's start off the what is a trust because I've heard it and it sounds like a fancy thing to have but I don't know what it is or what it does well that's exactly it it's you know the perception is that they're very fancy tools for rich people and nothing can be further from the truth they are really quite spectacular solutions that you can use in your in your in your planning and use in your planning to to leave a legacy so in essence what what a trust is to try bring it down to to layman's terms is that two things firstly it creates this legal entity not a company but like a company this legal entity that doesn't own the assets you put in there okay it appoints trustees professionals whose job is to look after the assets that are in there for the sole benefit of the beneficiaries that you put down as such okay so that's really what it does you know if you're gonna go create a company the company would own the assets whereas a trust doesn't own the assets per se okay they're there for the benefit of the beneficiaries but they are looked after by these these trustees who are professionals who are personally liable for that for that obligation. David there's two types of trust that you listeners may have come to to heard about and the first is a as a into vivos trust this is something that you create now while you're alive and it requires you to go and create this big whack of paper that gets registered at the master's office and then and that's not while you're alive and then this and we call that a capital legacy a living trust and then you get what's called testamentary trust these are trust that you create in your world and they only come about when you pass away in your world is basically the piece of paper that governs that that trust. Those are actually in the end kind of the same they do exactly what I said is they allow you to create this entity that can have these assets not put them directly in the hands of your beneficiaries so there's no wastage there's no loss there's no stupidity with it and therefore they solve benefit. Now I mean I mentioned and everybody always says to me that nothing is really sacred with me when it comes to discussing things on air but my fiance's parents who who passed away well it's I think it's going on two years now they had a family trust and that trust was was sort of running totally independently there was somebody else that was involved in the trust and I think there was a lawyer and there was this property and rental and all sorts of things and I was just wondering is that the kind of thing because now that they've passed away the trust still exists and my fiance and her brother have now I guess become trustees of it but then the other the other people want to it's a complicated thing how do I uncomplicate this I mean Connor I just come to you and go Alex don't you have you know like a package A package B package C for me to tell me what I should do in terms of a trust. No I mean you can't hit the nail on the head where there's a trust there's a lawyer right so so to answer your question on that particular trust I doubt it can be unwound but I but I speculate that it was maybe the wrong thing that was done at the time and and that's really where these three prepackaged solutions have come into great effect for the clients of capital legacy so simply put what we've got is when you do your will with us we don't force you now to do a trust and have all the expenses and the headache and the heartache but yet when you pass away you need the benefit of that of that trust and obviously discuss the fees and if you've got one of our legacy protection plans there are no fees when you pass away so you take that out the arguments and the three prepackaged solutions are as follows the first one is a children's trust that's specifically designed if you've got children and you need them to be financially looked after and their needs met on an ongoing monthly basis and it would and it would and it would have a termination date so you don't have this thing that just lasts and lasts and lasts with all the costs and complications you know when they maybe turn 21 or 25 or 23 so it's you know they're no longer children they're young adults and that's what we call a children's trust that you can create in terms of of the will interestingly we've actually just last week launched a product that goes with the children's trust that can actually create the funding for their education and their their care needs so you can you can do the will and then you can actually also make sure that there's funds for it because it's point is created in our children's trust and there's you know it's like an empty pantry with moss coming out of it okay so so what is what is the product that that you launched is it also like because it's edu-care isn't it if i'm not mistaken yeah correct yeah so so we've created a product now called edu-care and what it does is it's but snug into the children's trust and make sure we avoid the situation where this the person has gone about doing everything right they've got the will they've done the children's trust they've got children but they just simply don't have enough capital or insurance to actually pay the school fees and pay the medical aid um so so we've created this product to try solve the gap much like we did the legacy protection plan and the fees that we've discussed and you do pass away all right okay so so that that makes sense are we going to have a break in just a second and then come back and discuss the other two but just for more clarity so a trust is this this almost like an independent entity but it's not a business but the trust itself can have assets in it uh like i mentioned there could be properties there could be a business concern or invent or investments am i am i correct in assuming that absolutely can i pretty much anything and then in terms of of your will you would then say okay um i want this trust to carry on now particularly with with the children's trust until my children reach 25 years of age and then does the trust get dissolved and and the the assets then paid out to the children when it was left in the trust will then be be paid out to the kids at that particular particular event okay that's yeah that makes it much clearer thanks alex because i've been totally confused by this whole thing this is what's involved it is proudly brought to you by capital legacy south africa's number one wills and estate specialists my special guest is alex simianides we'll be back with alex in just a bit this is what's involved don't forget to subscribe and leave a review more next and we're back what's involved probably brought to you by capital legacy my special guest is the ceo alex simianides so just before the break alex we'd spoken about the the sort of three kinds of of trusts that you guys have put together as packages the one being the children's trust which i i totally get and we clarified that talk to me about the others now what's up next so the second one we we do and and this is specifically to a situation where you've got a child who i'm going to use the incorrect terminology uh but has special needs who who needs special care um so so you've got that situation or maybe you've got parents who aren't frail care or maybe you've got someone in your family who you are financially responsible for but but maybe that is not up to managing the money and and you know it might have a gambling problem or a drug problem so they've got you know these are these are financial dependents who have particular needs that are going to last much longer than say 22 or 23 in the example that we had with the children's trust and we call this a provider's trust it's something that we create seamlessly off the world um that is designed specifically for that to be open-ended for as long as they need that financial protection um and financial provision um and then the the third one is one that we we we engineered for it for maybe a very South African situation um so a lot of people when they're doing their will they want to leave a significant amount of money to their spouse but they feel their spouse uh thinks that a budget is a target and that the money will be squandered but yet they still need this this this money to be available to their spouse so that they can be be looked after so the obvious solution is to put it into what a trust that you spoke about now a family trust but the problem with that David is that you then trigger a state duty tax and and and uh that's very undesirable because then you know a good chunk of what you are trying to provide is going to get given to to the tax man um and so what we've managed to create is what's called the widow's trust we created in terms of the world the money can go into it it's administered for the benefit of the spouse it is ultimately their money um and it's a lifelong it's a lifelong trust but their lifelong trust but it doesn't actually have the tax on it which is fantastic um so it can tick all the boxes if you are in that particular situation um we use it when people have got what are called excess walls you know above their their their their minimum need um and they just don't want that that they want it all for their spouse but they don't want to get wasted alex this is one of those situations where i wish for example that my dad had known about this kind of you know trusts and the provider's trust because as things stand now um you know my dad had passed away yes there was uh some money that was left to my mom etc etc but um that money which in the old days sounded like a lot is definitely not a lot these days my mom and sister now live with us my mom is is uh just about 80 years old very frail and you know with all the symptoms of getting older the forgetfulness and everything and uh my sister is is disabled she's in a wheelchair for the most part now if my dad had known about this this would have been i would think an ideal way to go okay hang on let's make sure that there's something available to look after them is this something in a case like this you know so now i'm looking after them and taking care of their needs except when you're not sure if you know well that's what i was going to say they stubborn old ducks those and they may well stick around and and and you know long after me so is this way something where i would then be looking at a provider's trust if you use a provider's trust it's going to horrible to say but it would replace you when you're not here in the role that you're currently for as long as they live well it's it's an interesting that you mentioned this because um this was a discussion that uh my funds fiance and i had the other day she was like i don't want to be rude what happens what happens if you do get hit by that proverbial bus um because you can't just assume that you know your your partner or your spouse will continue to look after those you don't think you stay either you know yeah yeah okay so now i want to do or anybody listening wants to do a provider's trust or a widow's trust they would then talk to to one of your consultants how do they put money or assets or anything into those trusts what is the mechanism then so the mechanism is is your will so you you have to pass away because we don't want you to be creating these trusts now you're not going to put anything in them but you can have all the cost and the complication and the administration you only really need it when you pass away to your example so the mechanism is your will and in your will you would say i want x and y and z to go into this trust aha okay so that's where all right so so you know i would need to then look at any of my assets and investments and all of those yeah and say okay take that put it into the trust and that then needs to to look after them okay that makes sense and i would assume the same would would would go as a widow's trust a hundred percent and what we often see with the widow's trust is it's normally the the surplus or residue so specific things have gone to specific people and and there's some excess or surplus and that normally goes goes there so you know just the listeners benefit that's normally what happens with the widow's trust yeah i'm so glad we talked about this because i had no idea i mean like i said i thought a trust was something only very rich people did overseas you know because they all talk about trust trust fund babies and trust this is a net and the next thing but this is this is accessible to a lot of people it's it's not everyday man's and woman's absolutely that's needed no it is absolutely i mean as i'm looking at this i'm going oh and it's the worst thing you know it's one of those if only only i had known um but anyway we're going to move on because i think that uh we've still got questions and all sorts of things to do so uh maybe we're going to dive in and chat about worldwide worlds because i mean every day there's people that are immigrating leaving south africa um and they do things and i'll give you a prime example of something which is really through a spanner in the works for us is um my uncle spent his time between the uk and south africa so he had a home here in south africa he had a home in the uk um and when he passed away due to due to covid there was kind of this this mad scramble because he had a will in south africa but then he also had a will in the uk and those two were different um and it has caused immense confusion because you know i mean they don't even have like lawyers over there because they call themselves solicitors for whatever reason maybe it's because they solicit for your business but anyway so so how does this work alex help us out here so look i mean i mean the other situation is we've got lots of south africans who are still here happily but their money's not um you know they they may be living here but their assets are living elsewhere so that's another situation so you can go about having two wills or three wills or five wills so maybe you've got some assets in the us and the uk and ours and you can imagine trying to now maintain five wills let alone two let alone one um and it's quite costly and and you create you create arbitrage because and i'm sure that's what you you've experienced where fundamentally the wills are different in their direction and you can create a lot of headache and heartache as a as a result so what we've come out with what we call is the worldwide will and it's a singular will that you can do here in south africa but it's reaches across all commonwealth countries all countries where you've got the freedom of gestation such as countries i mentioned and many many more and and it can be used widely across the world so if you pass away that will can then be used in the uk and the us and in that will you then actually deal with all your assets both here in south africa as well as in the uk or the us or ours or new zealand or whatever the case netherlands whatever the case may be and um and then you only have one will and what it does is actually it points um ourselves and international uh firms too that we've really sussed out and you don't get too over solicited should we say and uh and it points us as a team to be able to deal with the assets as there may be because the other thing is david you you don't want to be doing wills on a reactive basis you don't want to do something in in business or whatever the case may be in canada and then to get to do the will you know this can catch it this can catch it preemptively because you've done a singular will that that will seize the future and you have an asset anywhere in the world and and and goes out and deals with it it does have it's proven there's more so there is there is more to this though alex and i want to get get into that uh when we come back because you've spoken about commonwealth countries uh and i want to dive deeper into something because obviously these places where um they don't have the same inheritance laws so we'll chat a bit about that when we come back what's involved this week's edition proudly brought to you by capital legacy they are south africa's number one wills and estate specialists back with alex in a bit we'll be right back with more what's involved david would love to hear from you to leave a voice message visit what's involved com and click drop me a voice note and we're back what's involved brought to you by capital legacy my guest is the ceo alex semionides and we're talking about wills and trusts and now we've just before the break got on to worldwide wills so www it's confusing anyway so now you've said in various countries like commonwealth like like uh the the usa or australia for example um we can go to somebody like yourself and say hello capital legacy i want to worldwide will because um i have money that's living in a swiss bank account i have investments that are living over here and this is over there um and then you would be able to to take care of all of that correct correct so the worldwide will um can solve a lot of problems but it doesn't solve every problem so david you know if you have a property in in italy um or portugal these countries specifically have what we call forced airship and mostly over property and so what you would then need to do and we would flag you for this we'd say well where do you have these assets if you do say italy or spain or or somewhere like that we would then take care of the worldwide will is not going to work there you are going to need to do worldwide law for everywhere else but we're going to need to help you get a will in italy and and then again we will lean on our international uh firm of attorneys and and get that done for you all right because yeah that's that it was one of the things i was going to say i mean um like for example um it's the portugal you mentioned those um that that it going to um like a family member is is what will come first if i'm understanding you correct correct yeah they've still got the old way of um forced airship more often than not it's the first born uh sun that gets the property no matter what you do in terms of the world and portugal for example there's some very particular ways the will needs to have been drafted um that we just cannot do with that nowhere else in the world really does but you have to do it uh for it to be better so so we've got flags that would then say you know you know you portugal divide italy and and then it would help you get a second one there but if it's not those countries you can just use a worldwide will and and not have to stress yourself with you see these are these are things that you just don't think about and i go back to to the the example of my uncle i mean if he'd done a worldwide will okay life would have been much simpler for everybody concerned but he didn't and then as i said there were two separate rules and exactly as you mentioned pointing in different directions and you're trying to explain that to the swiss bankers when you want to close down an account two different sets of administrators to deal with yeah two different yeah two different meetings two different this they need to talk to each other no it's a mess yeah it wasn't it is it remains a mess anyway um so again understanding you correctly then here in south africa it's actually not too bad because um we've got freedom in to say um i can leave my money my assets to whoever or wherever i want to whereas as you said other countries have got those specific laws so we are quite progressive yeah in south africa yay there is hope for us anyway um just uh alex i want to take a step back there because um i think we've lost over it and i don't think we we should necessarily gloss over it um the the recent launch that you guys um have have had um they're the educated now if somebody has a will with you or not with you does it make a difference or can they still make use of educated so in our ideal world um the children's trust which comes from all will uh users educate so that's the perfect scenario but we have made provision in the product if the situation arises that it's not our will and if there is no children's trust per say the product does um enable us to create a separate trust from the will that will then uh deliver as the product has promised to do so we do have this uh plan b if you may that's built in the product but it's not ideal it's not ideal um and we're also using the product as an opportunity for people to reassess the provisions they've made for their children that they should pass away because what we've discovered is is the the cost of the care and the cost of the education is completely under provided for and we we feel this every day when we're running these trusts and there's just not enough money um so we're using the product to encourage people to go back a step and just reassess how much they've actually put aside so that they can actually meet the needs and not leave the trustees shortchanged for the beneficiaries now you see this is and and this is also a thing because and i think back even to myself in the beginning of my my parents is like a will was was very often seen as something you do once and uh then it's done and it's over and you know most of the time in my experiences um wills have been been sort of the banks have been executives etc etc and responsible for wrapping up and people are reluctant to change that but i mean if we now come across something like you guys capital legacy we go hang on a second these guys have been thinking here and they've got some plans and these plans can benefit my loved ones when i pass away why don't i just go move my will and say there we go please do my will for me um so there's not this there's no need for a stigma to be attached to where your will is am i right you're 100 you're 100 rights and you know on the one side and i'm going to contradict myself one side you really do ideally want to build a will so robust and so strong that it can sit on your shelf and it doesn't need to be touched but the realities of life happen and life changes and needs change and you'll never get a perfect uh on the first attempt so in the same way that you want your will to be robust and strong and with a reputable company but at the same time they may be left behind and and and other providers come to the fore and you want to use new technology i mean you don't use the old dull tulkon phone anymore use the cell phone um you know the same to be true with your death planning yeah exactly and i mean when you first dropped up the will i think the first time i ever drafted a will um was back in bed all days when i was in the army and they weren't you know they were sending us out to to do uh country insurgency operations so you got to leave your 12-speed racing bike to your mom and your old bedside radio to your girlfriend but you had to do a will um but like the first serious will thereafter was was literally when uh when i bought a house and i was like okay what's going to happen now we're just going to do this that and the next thing not thinking about how things change and i mean even in terms of of health you have no idea um what your partner or your children's health is going to look like so it is a good idea to be able to to do this this kind of thing alex we're kind of reaching the end of our chat again um and i've got listener questions as well so i tell you what when we come back can we dive into some of the listener questions regarding regarding this and then i've also got one that we didn't get a chance to talk about uh last month so uh talk about that when we come back it is what's involved probably brought to you by capital legacy south africa's number one wills and estate planners uh back with alex as i said in just a bit hey like 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and we're back what's involved probably brought you by capital legacy they say it's number one wills and estate specialists alex amiranides the ceo is my guest uh okay alex questions let's start off with the one about uh that i got uh last uh last month and it was just too late to get into that episode so uh this person wanted to remain anonymous they said we had a legal company dealing with an estate we amongst others were beneficiaries the estate was paid out nearly two years after the death they held back 50 000 rand to cover possible extras six months after the payout they asked all the beneficiaries to pay back around 40 000 rand as they had made a mistake in the tax calculation uh is this is this a normal thing that happens and are we obliged to pay it back says anonymous so this happens this can happen a lot um so what they basically what basically happened david is they got what's called a pre-inheritance um there is no obligation to do a pre-inheritance but it's a really nice thing that we can do as executives if things are stolen why would things stall well because we're waiting for the south african revenue service to to do the assessments of the final tax return and so what clearly happened here is they they took an estimate of what they think the taxable will be um and they did they did well by the beneficiary to say well you know what we're going to exercise our discretion and do a pre-inheritance when we do that as executives we actually expose ourselves quite quite a lot but you know you always want to help and not need people in the lurch just because the taxable is waiting to be paid what happens though is is the south african revenue service can come back to you and then say well you know we've looked at your return much like when you're alive and we disagree with you and you actually need to pay this new amount um and yeah you unfortunately they need to pay back a little bit of money but pay a bit of money back so i don't think the the air should punish the executives who are trying to do well by them um it wasn't it may have honestly been a mistake but i don't believe it was a mistake because there's many tools available to us just to calculate the taxes what i think happened is there was a reassessment of the person's earnings and sauce found maybe something that wasn't um that maybe wasn't in the mix and they needed to pay tax on so yeah i would say they need to pay the money back okay so yeah so what's the old saying no good deed goes unpunished exactly so the idea there is that they they paid them out up front okay all right i i got that wow you know gotta love sauce man gotta love sauce anyway okay let's get on to some more relevant questions next up uh tina says uh alex how many trustees can a testamentary trust have so i think the right question there for me is what what are the right amounts of trustees for me um you know depending on your situation i always encourage you to have um a personal or personally appointed trustee someone that's close to the children um close to the the the the the parents whatever the case may be that understands the the history and the needs from a personal point of view but then also a professional company a firm individual who is versed in the in the running of a trust and the and can take the professional uh and personal liability because remember you hold the efforts on behalf of the beneficiaries you take on you take on the liability personally if anything goes wrong um so you have that nice check and balance so i would always suggest at least two personal appointment and a professional appointment the problem is if the personal appointment disagrees with the professional appointment then how do you have an idea to decide right so then i would then say if you've got quite a lot of money in the trust have a third for purposes of having the casting vote so that you can always have a two one majority okay see the the the reality of these trusts is it's not becoming apparent to me that it's definitely not what you see on tv where the board of trustees sort of is like 17 people big and they then deciding if little johnny should be allowed to buy his latest portion wait a year with 17 okay so uh you reckon two three three sounds right because then they can break it as you said the tire break um now uh pete is in north riding i think we may have answered this question but but let's see he wants to know which type of will would be the best for him if he owns a house overseas so first question yeah we didn't kind of answer this but let's just answer with the question so the first question is where is that where is the house if it's in the uk if it's in ours then i would suggest uh you know pete does a world wide will doesn't need to go run off and get a solicitor uh over there if it's in portugal uh in dubai then i'm going to suggest that he does a for the african world for the south african stuff and he does a will in in portugal and i both of which we can we all do for them for him okay see that's a nice part i like is that i don't have to go because um just heads up um not only do they call themselves in the uk solicitors they they also i think charge according to like how long the word solicitors is because they they're not cheaper compared to south africa they are not cheap i must just tell you um all right before i let you go alex i think i got one more here in brian uh chris chris is in brianston and he says can trustees change the terms of a testamentary trust so the short answer is no um that trust and the terms of that trust are enshrined in the world that you created well you were were alive however they if something in if something's happened after you passed away that's not in the interest of the beneficiaries and hasn't been thought about in terms of the world and maybe the world wasn't uh drafted very well um then they can apply to the high court to to have certain things changed but it's very unlikely very unlikely and and like i said it's a huge court application with the advocates and the this and the that and they've really got the onus of proof that there's a reason to change it and it must only be in the interest of the beneficiaries so i think the short answer is no but as with everything there's an exception but the exception is unlikely all righty okay well it about wraps it up for us today alex i'm sure you've still got lots to do recovering from from your launch um and then coming up it's like september's around the corner and september's will's month so that's that's also i'm sure something you guys are are gearing up for uh talking about that you're going to be you're going to be chatting to me in september um about will's month and uh apparently there's some exciting new developments from you guys so i'm going to be very very excited to hear about that um if people have got any questions related to wills or trusts or anything that they would like to be covered alex so they can just drop us an email yeah they can drop us an email or quickly visit um capital legacy that's here today you can't miss it it's i've got a question and you hit the button and put you give us your question and one of my team will will be in touch talking there often okay good well we could also uh you can also send any questions that you may have to what's involved at capital legacy.co.za that's w-a-t-t-s involved at capital legacy.co.za alex as always thank you for taking time out of your schedule um we we really do appreciate it i don't know how busy you are um and we're going to be chatting again next month anything else they need to know about getting their wills in place what do they need to do so i think the the easiest and quickest thing to say to to someone is don't procrastinate get in touch we will do everything in our power to make it an easy process for you all you have to do is just go to capital legacy.co.za give us your name and number and we can get the ball rolling and get it sorted for you.

yeah and then um you guys still offer the the will consultations online um over the phone but obviously now you can do it in person as well if you find that better yeah yeah it depends on your preference depends on your time some people are enjoying the online meeting virtual meeting others enjoy something like this being face to face really whatever your preferences are whatever your times are my consultants will happily happily meet you uh online or in your dining room whatever your preferences wonderful stuff alex thank you so much for chatting to us today we all chat to you next month great stuff there we go wraps it up for this edition of what's involved it was proudly brought to you by capital legacy uh my special guest there is the CEO Alex Simeonides uh we'll be back as we said next month in wheels month to discuss more about that until then to each and every one of you take care look after yourselves 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.