Lourens Oberholzer — Retire Rich And Happy Wills And Estates

I feel awkward saying Happy New Year, but I haven't seen you since November last year. Since November, and it's gone past like that. It feels like I was here last week. Yeah, well, maybe for you. It is Lawrence Ubrall's Founder and CEO of Retire Rich and Happy Back in his regular slot. We missed you. People have been asking about you. That's always good. A couple of messages and mails, "Where's Lawrence? Is he coming back? What's happening? Is Retire Rich and Happy?" And I'm like, "Yes, he's not going anywhere." Everything's okay. He's going to be back. I just started the year with 520 things that had to happen at once. So we've done everything. Oh, fantastic. At least somebody's got everything done. I always thought it was old. What was his name? Robinson Crusoe was the only person I know that could get everything done by Friday. But yeah, so you're being well, the business going well. Going very well, yeah. We're doing a lot of renovations at the office. We're doing recruiting, we're adding to the team, we're expanding. It's yeah, everything's happening this year. Geez, they shouldn't let you go on holiday. Yeah, they don't want me to go on holiday because they know things are going to happen.

Oh, the staff are a little nervous. When I go away, yeah, exactly. So what are we talking about tonight? In terms of Retire Rich and Happy, a couple of questions I had is like, "Listen, we missed out last year that financial freedom for what's happening. Is it happening?" So it is still happening? Yes, yeah. The next one is going to be the 4th of April, same time, same place, 9, 8.30 for 9, 4th of April, 5 hours up to 3 o'clock and it's again going to be in Centurion. So we will be giving away some free tickets for that as well for people, but they can book online. They can email us at info@retirehappy.ca.za for information, yeah. So we're ready to take the tickets. Wonderful stuff. Now, tonight you said we're going to talk about something fairly interesting, I think, and the reason I'm finding it particularly interesting now is I'm actually going through this. We're talking wills and estates. Estates, how to wind up your estate and a few things to keep in mind when you set up your will. Yeah, I thought it was a good topic because beginning of the year, people want to make sure all their ducks are in a row, they want to make these things, get these things sorted out. Also, over December, we tend to have a lot of experiences with this because of the death on the roads, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's something that hits very close to home to a lot of people around this time of the year. And one of the reasons I thought is I was reading a study that they did around finance, civil finance in South Africa, and one of the statistics that really jumped out of me was the fact that they estimate that 70% of the working population in South Africa has no valid will. And 70%, yeah, that just jumped out at me, I was shocked. And a lot of the people who do have outdated wills, they haven't updated their will for two years, and that's such a risky proposition to not have it updated and not have a will. Well it's a scary thing, and the reason I'm going through this is my mom is getting on and she's needing to sell the house, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we were talking about her will and her affairs. It's not an easy thing to talk about, you know, and particularly if it's somebody you love, it's your loved one. I mean, you did my will for me, it was easy. I have nothing and all of that goes to Helena, you know, so that was very easy. I didn't take a lot of time, but it becomes so complicated, reasoning with this whole thing now, and I don't know if you know anything about this, but I'm totally lost because there's also, as I said, you know, my mom's getting on in years and there's this thing about power of attorney.

Yes. Yes. And when I tried to find out about this, it was like I'd kicked an ant's nest. I mean, just if you think I'm raging out there and I'm like, I don't know, can I know in the old days, somebody could sign, I give you power of attorney there you go. You can look after my affairs these days, apparently it's not as simple. Yeah, it is not as simple. It has to be, um, authorized by a court, so it's a whole process that you have to go through to get a proper power of attorney done. So yeah, it is, it is quite all on its nest. So wow, if anybody's got any, you know, any advice for me, any information on how to get it done, please. I am lost now. We'll give you some info as well. On the one hand, people say you can't do it because she's still healthy and she's still a sound mind. Yes. While she is, it is going to be very difficult for the court to, to give you power. So they're not going to do that. And then the thing is, but you know, we want to do something in case something happens and they're like, no, it's a minefield. It's an absolute minefield, but wills and estates can also be a minefield. Especially with, with people who get it getting on in years, because what tends to happen, I don't know if you've experienced this with your mom, as people get older, they, they start getting very, very complicated with what they want to leave to whom.

When we're young, we go, oh, if I pass away, everything goes to my wife. If she passes away, everything goes to me. And if we both pass away, everything goes to the kids. When people get older, they will go, okay, that little spoon that I got in Clarence, got one year with my second cousin, I want him to have that spoon. And it becomes like this whole big thing for them to, to get their well sought out. And that little crochet doily that you, with the lady in it that used to put over the toilet paper, that that's got to go to Antiflow. Yes. Yeah. They, they get very, very attached and into the smallest detail. And, and one of the things we'll chat about tonight is keep your will as simple as possible. Yeah. The more complicated it is, the more difficult it becomes for the executor to, to actually get your wishes done so that people actually get what you want them to get. Yeah. But how would you go about doing that? I mean, I know that the simpler the better, but I mean, could you, could you maybe attach a little, but that's, I suppose, I was going to say, could you attach a little bit? That's what we, we, we've got one client who's been a client of mine for years and years and years, probably close on 15, 16 years, and she's got all of these small little things.

So her son looks after her most of the time. So what we did with her is she trusts her son. So what we did with her, she just wrote a letter with what she wants with the small things. And we kept that out of the wall so that he can give the small things like the, she's got like these long spiel plot or what do you call them? The LPs. She's got those that she wants to have with a player to go to somebody that does music and all of this. People are going to be lining up. That's the other thing I've noticed when somebody passes away, you suddenly get family you never ever knew you had. Exactly. You're lining up and going, yeah, but auntie, auntie Flo said, I could have this and I mean, I know from, from some of our family as well, when my, my grandma, my one grandmother passed away. Goodness gracious me. She was amazed at the stuff she gave away, but none of it was in the world. Yeah. No, it can, it can really get messy. And if you die without a will, even worse, it's worse. Yeah. Especially with when you're younger, we tend to think, but I don't need a will. So I made a note and I said, okay, but who needs a will? Now first and foremost, everybody who has some kind of asset needs a will, whether you've bought a car, whether you've bought a house, whether you have some furniture, get a will so that at least we know your things can get sorted.

Secondly, people tend to forget about their pension fund. They think, but I have nothing. I just started working, but at work they've got a pension fund. That pension fund is divided into two sections. There's the investment portion and the risk portion. That risk portion probably has group life cover or something on like that. So that has to be handled by the will as well. So if you have anything like that, if you have a retirement annuity, if you have an endowment, if you have life cover, make sure that you've got a will in place. And even more important, if you have a baby, if you get married, get your will sorted out. That's probably almost as important as your marital contract, as your will. Get your will sorted out as quickly as possible. Yeah. I mean, look at me. I wasn't even, I didn't even pay attention because you know, you go through so much of your life thinking you tend for tall and bulletproof. When we went through my policies that are sitting in a dusty corner somewhere and this that and the next thing, oh no, it was going all over the place, nowhere where I wanted it to go. Exactly. Yeah. So, and that's another thing we need to talk about as I go through this. One of the things I'll talk about is beneficiaries on policies and how that affects the will and vice versa.

So that's quite an interesting one that I'll talk about a little bit later. Yeah. So it's so important to have that will drawn up. You need to make sure that you sit down with somebody that, um, is a specialist and draw it up. You don't go to CNA and get one of those little thingies that you get that you buy for 200 bucks and then fill it in that little standard forms. I mean, you could have a, a world drawn up for between 500 and 1,500 Rand, a proper will with somebody coming out to your house and doing it. We are running a special where we can come and do that wall for you for no fee because we're doing an outreach program where we send our wall specialists to meet with people to help them set this up because it's so important that people get their walls sorted up. So really, if you're a listener today and you haven't got a will or your will has been outdated for years, you haven't had it. One of the things I get a lot as I sit with clients and I say to them, so have you got a wall? They say, yes, I do. They said, where's it kept? I think it was still with, um, isn't it with APSA or whatever, one of the banks. And then I go, well, tell me this. If you don't know where to find your wall and you pass away, how are the people going to find it?

It reminds me, I have to find out if I've got mine somewhere. Actually I'm, you know, you learn it's just, you know, it's fun, you know, he'll know where it is. Um, but also, you know, there's, there's, there's a whole lot of things that they sometimes can catch you. I don't know if it's been changed, but in the old days, you know, um, if, if, you know, you get your will drawn up through, um, a bank, for example, they then become the executive or whatever, and that can end up costing a lot of money. Yeah. So yes, you segwaying perfectly into my next part is the estate cost. So most people look at, at walls and the estate and they think the cost of the estate is the executive fees. That is what the estate costs. And the executive fees are only a portion of the cost of the whole estate that needs to be wound up. I'll give you an example of some of the things that, that, um, goes in. So they've estimated that some of these state costs can go up to about 30% of the whole estate can go to costs 30%. And I'll give you a breakdown of what these costs saw. The first one is executive fees. So executive fees is the one that everybody jumps onto and they say, Oh, I don't want to pay a lot of executive fees.

So I'm going to make my wife, the executor, or I'm going to break my brother, the executor. And we'll talk about why that's not a good idea. But the executive fees, about 3.5% of the estate plus VAT. So 3.5, and then you have to add VAT on top of that. Okay. And that still sounds okay. Yeah. It's, it's, people think that's the worst. If you look at a 30% of the estate goes to cost, only 3.5% goes to the rest of it. So then we have conveyancing attorney's fees to transfer the property to the beneficiaries. So that is about 1.5 to 2% of the value of the property. So if you're looking at a 2 million rand property, that's about 30,000 rand that goes towards that. Okay. Then we have the trust set up fees. So if your children is under 18 years old and the money has to go into trust, that takes about 1.15% of the total assets that go into that trust is paid to set up that trust. But the big one is that trust then needs to be run over the period of time that the child is still under age. So let's say you pass away, your child is five years old. That trust has to run until 18, 21 or 25, depending on what you choose. And for every year, it's about 1.6% of the value of that trust that goes into costs.

So that can become hundreds of thousands of rands over time. Then we've got property valuation fees. So before the property can be transferred, it has to be valued. And that can go anything from 7,500 up to 13,500 rand for property valuation fees. Then we have clearance certificates at the municipalities because the state can't be wind up until they have a clearance certificate from the municipality. So that clearance certificates can be up to six months of your water and lights account. So if your water and lights account is 4,000 rand, that's about 30 grand again. The master's fees that has to be paid to the master to be appointed, et cetera, et cetera, can be up to 7,000 rand. Advertising fees about 1,500 rand. And then we don't even talk about the inheritance tax, like capital gains tax that needs to be calculated, estate duty that needs to be calculated, et cetera, et cetera. And then on top of that, you have running costs and immediate expenses for the family. So for example, if a person passes away, his accounts get frozen, but he might still have medical aid on his name. So that medical aid still has to be paid. The short-term insurance still has to be paid. The school fees still have to be paid.

So that all has to come out of the estate. So that gets added to the estate cost at the end of the term when they wind up the estate. Wow. So it's much more than just executives fees that needs to be paid. Okay. We're going to talk about this a little bit more when we come back, and then hopefully you can also talk about, because I got a sneaking suspicion that I might get made executor and I'm not keen. No, it's not a good idea. I'm not keen. And I'll tell you, I'll explain why when we come back. We've got Lawrence Oberholz in studio with us. What's Involved and I'll proudly brought to you by Retire Rich and Happy. You can check out the website. It's retirerichandhappy.co.za Yes. Still remember that even after last year. What's Involved this Monday night, proudly brought to you by Retire Rich and Happy. And we have the CEO and founder in studio with us. We're talking wills and estates this evening. Should we talk about what we're going to give out? Yes. We're going to do that. Because I think this is a nice time. Gives people some chance. Something. Yeah. So yeah, I'm going to give away five free consultations with a world specialist. Okay. They can be at your home or at work. They will come out to you, no cost, plus five double tickets for the forum on the 4th of April where you can come and we will go through everything, explain to you the whole cashflow management system that we developed, the bucket system, explain to you the five steps, all of those kind of things.

Those are the VIP tickets. Those are the VIP tickets. So you get lunch, you get all the tools and you get some time to chat with me as well. Okay. Now the double tickets and the will consultation is not necessarily the same thing or is it a package? It's a package. So every person, five people will get the tickets plus the wills consultation for free. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a double one. Okay. So you get the tickets and the wills consultation. So what do they need to do? Okay, SMS, their name to RRH and their name, sorry, it's been to RRH and their name to 4509. So it's not the station's number. 4509. It's not the station SMS, okay. This is RRH, this is Lawrence's own one. So SMS, RRH engine name to 4509 or WhatsApp? 082-641355. 641355, so either WhatsApp or SMS. So for both of them, RRH and your name, then Lawrence's team will select those lucky winners. So just so the listeners, if your SMS doesn't go through, it doesn't work with three SMSs. So I think it's one ran 50 per SMS. Probably one ran, yeah, it's WhatsApp. If it doesn't go through immediately, that phone number is specifically for the competition. So they will switch it on tomorrow. It will come through. Don't stress if it doesn't show the blue tick tonight.

It may not show the blue tick. Okay, cool. Anyway, what have we got you? We had a question. I have a question. Yes. Hi, David. Just joined my Willy's Simple, no trust, and with my bank. Is this a good thing or not? I have a property, some capital, including life insurance, a car, and a firearm left to either my spouse and/or daughter. Help. And that's Colin from Otsun. Great to hear you're listening, Otsun, Colin. Okay, well, there we go. You're not alone there, mate. Yes, okay. So here's what I would suggest. I would suggest you talk to somebody to first and foremost calculate the cost of your estate so that you can know what the cost is going to be so that you can plan to reduce that cost as much as possible. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we all think that I assume his daughter has grown up where he says that there's no trust. But there still has to be a provision in the will for a testamentary trust, and I'll explain why. We think that, well, it's only going to be me and my kids. They've grown up, so I don't need a trust. But then we all pass away in a car accident, but my grandchild is the only one left, which means the money has to go to him. Now there's no provision for a trust in the will, which means it goes to the Guardian's Fund, which is run by the government.

So you don't want that to happen. So always have provision in your will for a trust. So go and check if that is done. With the firearm, I would also suggest you get some professional help to just explain how to do the firearm, who it's going to, because if you just randomly say it's going to my wife, but your wife isn't there, and then it has to go to the daughter, it becomes a very complicated thing with firearms. So it's very important that you have somebody tell you exactly how to do that. Now, I know a lot of banks, they will do the will, et cetera, et cetera, for you. I've heard both sides of that particular story. I mean, I'm not in the industry. I've heard some people say, look, the bank's the place to be, and other people say, no. It's a very difficult question to ask you because of your position. Yes. But I'll give you my opinion. Yes. I always do. Yes. I don't have an issue with people having their will at the bank. There's a couple of things. The first thing that I need, I think people need to look at is the cost involved in drawing up the will and the cost in making changes and how often is those changes made? Remember, when the bank gets the will, they want to be the executor.

Something I have seen is that banks don't want to be the executor on a will, so they've been appointed the executor, but they don't want to be the executor if the estate is worth less than 600,000 because there's not enough cost in that. So then there's an issue with moving the will, getting another executor. We've had a case like that last year where we had to take it over. We had to run it because the bank just said, sorry, we don't want to run this estate. We don't want to wind it up. It's not worth our while. They don't make enough money out of it, essentially. They don't make enough money out of it. But if you've got a good relationship with a bank, you go there often, you revise your will often, you know the will is drawn up properly, there's nothing wrong with having it in a bank. It's better than making your brother the executor to have the bank as an executor. Yes. Let's talk about that for a little bit. Colin, I hope that answered your question. If you're happy, then let us know. Otherwise, you can send us another message. But Laurence and his team are happy to talk to people. You can drop them. We'll give you an email address at the end of the show. More than welcome to send them an email and somebody will get in contact with you.

They are very good at doing it. Even if it's only a telephonic and they can talk to you over the phone and give you some pointers. What is it called? Executorship? Yes. If you're being the executor of a will, some people see it as it's almost like an honor. It's the responsibility of a family member. The idea of it terrifies me, number one. Talk to me about being an executor and who should you look at to be the executor? I think one of the big things that people need to understand and where people misunderstand what an executor is, is they confuse executors and trustees with one another. So they think it's the same thing, they think the executor and the trustee is the same thing. So let's quickly chat about that. The executor, their job is to wind up the estate. So their job is to see all the assets come into the estate. They look at where all the debts are, they pay all the costs in the estate and they make sure that the rest of the estate is distributed to the beneficiaries. That's the executor's job. Nothing else. That's what the executor does. The trustee is the person who takes the money that is meant for the children, underage children, and they manage that money on behalf of the children until the children comes of age.

So that's two different things. Executors I always say to clients, let a specialist company be the executor. They know what they're doing. You don't want to be an executive, you're a private individual. And everybody runs and says, yo, but I don't want to pay these people three and a half percent. I'd rather have my wife be the executor or have my brother be executor. The problem is that the master won't appoint you executor, they won't give you the letter of executorship if you are not a professional in the financial field or the legal field. So you have to be a chartered accountant, you have to be a lawyer, that kind of thing. Otherwise they won't give you a letter of executorship. So now you go to the master, you say, my husband appointed me executor in the world, I want to be appointed the executor. Then they say, no, you have to get a partner, somebody to support you that is a professional. So now you go and get a lawyer to come and support you. But remember that lawyer is not limited to the 3.5% that an executor is limited to. That lawyer is still charging at client scale, so they can charge whatever they want. So they keep racking up bills for every letter they send, for everything they do for you, for everything they're going to make phone calls.

So very quickly, you're going to pay the lawyer much more than you would have paid the executor in the first place. And most of them, they get somebody involved and that person, it's not their speciality, that's not what they work with every single day. So they'll make mistakes and those kind of things. So for me, how do they say in Afrikaans, desosas need equal vanity, it's not worth it, to go through all that pain. Because an executor is not an easy job, there is a hell of a lot of admin work that needs to be done. There's ads that needs to be run, there's creditors that needs to be checked, bills that need to be paid, it is a hell of a job. I know a friend of mine was the executive of his mum's will and it took him, I think over a year, to eventually get everything figured out. That's the thing, because it takes so long. And it cost a lot of money and because of exactly what you were saying there. So interesting questions in, just let me remind you, if you'd like to win some of those double tickets and the will consultation, all you have to do is SMS, RRH and your name. Now this is not the station SMS, I see guys are really SMSing us at the station, not the station SMS, RRH and your name to 4509, that is the SMS, 45509, otherwise RRH and your name to the WhatsApp line, 082641355, that line, if it's not switched on today, it will be switched on first thing tomorrow.

A couple of interesting ones come in here, somebody said inheriting a firearm is quite simple, the person inheriting the firearm has two years to put it in his or her name. If in the end they don't want it, they can sell it, but within the two year period. So okay, I don't know much about that. What makes that a little bit difficult as well is if the person who inherits the firearm doesn't have it, they passed away or something with it. So let's say it's me and my wife, I want my wife to inherit my firearm, we both died in a car accident, now it goes to my children, then it complicates things a lot. The second thing is what then happens is if you don't position it all correctly, that firearm has to be handed in at the police station and it has to be kept there until the whole licensing thing is finished. And we all know what happens to firearms in that scenario. Sometimes on the odd occasion, rumor has it that they go missing. Yeah, somebody else says, "I've got various properties in firearms, what do you think a will at a bank or a trust fund?" I've got kids and grandkids, that's your hand. Yeah, so what I would do is get a proper will drawn up, again, sit with somebody, a world specialist that takes the time to sit with you, run through everything, get a proper will drawn up and then have a testamentary trust set up in your will.

Don't do a trust beforehand because the tax on an Intervivos trust, which is the trust that you set up beforehand, is different than on a testamentary trust, so you pay much more tax on an Intervivos trust than a testamentary trust. So that's a very good question and it goes further than just like what the listener said. A lot of people come to me and say, "But I'm going to set up the trust so long for my kids and then when I pass away, the money will just be moved into that trust." But that's an Intervivos trust, it works differently than a testamentary trust. It's better to have it stipulated in your will that the trust will be set up through the will once you pass away. Somebody else says, "Oh, Spencer says, 'Hi guys, I'm in the financial services industry myself. I want to congratulate and compliment Lawrence on the excellent way he explains complicated things.'" He's doing an excellent job, thanks for a great show. Thanks, Spencer. It's good to hear from somebody in the industry. There you go. Oh, see, this gentleman, this is about the back to the firearms, looks like it's Philip. Philip goes, "Within the two year period, if the deceased had a valid license, you can book it into a gun shop.

You don't have to give it to the police." Okay, that makes sense. And then apply for your license. Awesome, thank you so much, Philip. Thanks for that. Oh, I remember who you are now, Philip. We spoke to you last week. You do the fancy stonework. Right. So, who else? Hi, David and Lawrence, thank you guys for your awesome feedback. Big term, did not think of a trust for a grandchild, which I'm going to sort out ASAP. Oh, the firearm situation has already been sorted out. That's Colin. Thank you, Colin. Good. So, there we go. Okay. It's a big thing, and I'm so happy with some of the listeners. Obviously, Philip's got some experience there, so that they shared that experience with us, because, you know, as much as I like to think I know everything, I'm a radio presenter, we all think we know everything, I have realized over the years I really don't. So yeah, that's the thing. So wow, there's been, can I take a music break and we get back to this? My brain is fizzing right now, there's just been too much. Yeah, what I want to talk about when we come back is we're going to talk a little bit about the different personalities on the wall, and a few tips around that that I usually tell clients.

So don't do this. Rather do this. And this is my reason why. Okay. So I'll go through that when we come back. Fantastic stuff. It is what's involved. Proudly brought to you by Retire Rich and Happy. My guest and studio founder and CEO is Laurence Eberholz, are we talking wills and estates tonight? Monday night what's involved? Proudly brought to you by Retire Rich and Happy. So Laurence said we're going to do a couple of ratatas and tips and everything, but there's another message that came in. This one, this one kind of, yeah, this could have been me, man, this could have been me so easily. It goes, "Hi, David and Laurence. My dad passed away recently, and the lawyer/executor complained that there was no provision for executives' costs in the will, and one page was written on the back of a printed page and also not signed on every page, although the witnesses supported it. Please elaborate on these points if possible." That would have been me. I would have written something on the back of a cigarette carton. Yeah. Because you think that. I mean, that's what you get told. Your last willing testament is if you just write a letter, sign it and get somebody else to witness it. That's it.

That's good. And it is by law actually that, but there are so many small details that you have to put in. For example, one of the things that a standard will should have in is that it excludes the executor from having to supply assets as surety for the running of the estate or the winding up of the estate. If that doesn't state that, there's not a lot of executives that's going to take that on. So you're going to have a hell of a story to get an executor to do that. So that sounds like one of those wills that were either just written or one of these that you buy. One of the things he said as well is that it was written on the back of a printed page and not signed on every page. Yes. So there's a couple of things. So let's jump to that because that's sort of my last part. So what needs to happen for a will to be valid? The first one is each page must be signed and dated, each page. So I see so many wills. I sit with a client and they say, I've got a will and I say, bring it, let me just have a look. And they bring the will and it's signed, but there's no date. The moment there's no date, the courts can't know if that was written before or after another will. So they can't determine what was the last will and testament.

Remember, you don't cancel your will. You have the last will that says this will revokes all other codes, et cetera, et cetera. It's that first little sentence. And if that thing is not dated, how does it revoke something else if we don't know when that was dated? Wow. It has to be dated on each page and it has to be signed on each page by the test at all as well as the witnesses, not just the test at all. So what happens then? I mean, now, like the executive executives going, there's no executive costs in this will. So I'm assuming it wasn't a bigger state. Yes. And then they don't want to want to run that that will. What I would suggest is to get in contact, send it to a very specific case that send us an email, send an email directly to me. Let's see if we can get one of our wall specialists to talk to them and see if we can find a solution. So if you see what's the whole, whole situation, how big the state was, what's going on, where are we? They can send it directly to my email, Lawrence@retirehappy.ca.za, L-O-U-R-E-N-S. That's it. Okay. At retirehappy.ca.za. Send it directly to me. Yeah. I will have a look at it and I will get the right people to be in contact with them and see if they can help them.

Thank you. Appreciate that. So, so what are the things, what are the tips and pointers? Okay. You said I shouldn't go down to the local stationery store and, and, and buy one of those printed ones. Yes. You want to get somebody to do it. Yeah. So I'm going to run through the different personalities on a wall and then give a few ideas that I usually share with clients on that. Okay. So the first one is the beneficiary. Now what is the beneficiary? The beneficiary is the person that benefits from the wall. So that is your wife, your kids, whoever you want, the SPCA, who do you want to get the assets? Okay. So the first thing you need to understand is that the beneficiary is not allowed to sign as a witness on the wall. The moment a beneficiary signs as a witness, they are excluded from the wall. So they can contest it in court, but it is, again, it delays the whole process. So don't let your beneficiary, so don't let your wife sign as a witness on your wall or your children sign as a witness on the wall, even if they are replacing beneficiary for your wife. So you say, if me and my wife pass away within 30 days of each other, then my kids inherit. Don't let your kids sign as witnesses.

That is so important. Yeah. Okay. The second thing is, look, don't share the estate equally amongst everybody because I know I said, keep it simple, but there's certain things that doesn't work. For example, you say, I want my estate shared between my kids equally. Now you have a call. What happens? Don't share that call equally amongst each other. So now this whole calculation needs to happen because one of them have to go by the call and then the others have to give up some of theirs. It's a whole issue. So try and be practical. Look at it and say, if I had to do it while I'm alive, would I be able to do this? Yes or no? Would it be simple or would it become a nightmare if I wanted to do it? So for example, let's say, and using my mom as an example, if she said, listen, I'm going to leave the house to you and your sister. Yes. That's a problem. Yeah. It's not ideal because now both of you have the house and now the one has to buy the other one out. Rather say, sit with you two and say, listen, what do you want to do? Does one of you want the house? Yes or no? Then you say, I would like the house. Yeah. Okay. So you getting the house, your city, sister's getting the cash out of the estate.

Yeah. Instead of just saying, well, you both get it and then you have to fight it out. Could you say that we need to sell the assets and then divide up the cash? You could do that. Essentially. Yeah. You could do that. But again, the executor will then sell it on auction. They're not going to wait for six months to get a profit. They're not looking for a good buyer. They're just going to sell it. So I would rather not sell the assets out of the estate if you don't have to. Okay. Okay. Be careful of use-of-fract rights. What do you use? Use-of-fract. Okay. So what use-of-fract rights and it's something that I've seen and not stepping on anybody's toes is a lot of people in the financial industry sits with a client, they set up the wall and it makes them sound very clever when they talk about use-of-fract rights and they use it to sound clever, but they don't really understand the effect of a use-of-fract right. So use-of-fract right in Afrikaans is livens rach, it says better in Afrikaans than in English. So what that means is if I, let's say you and your wife have two children, you can leave the house to your children, but give your wife use-of-fract rights for the rest of her life on that house.

So the house is inherited by the children, but your wife is allowed to live in that house for the rest of her life. They're not allowed to sell it for that period. Okay. Now that's where the issue comes in. I'll give you a perfect example, I had a client, was married, got divorced, he got married again, the children stayed with the wife, the ex-wife. He passed away in a motorcycle accident and in his will, he then left the property to the kids, but they were underage, but he gave his new wife use-of-fract rights on the property for the rest of her life. Now she stays in that property, their trust cannot sell that property. That trust now has to upkeep that property, pay the rates and taxes. They don't even have enough capital in that trust to pay for the kids, but it has to pay for the property and they can't sell that property because she's staying in the property. So it can create these times when use-of-fract has its place, but it creates, a lot of times it creates more problems than it solves. Okay. All right. So we can talk another half an hour just on that, I don't want to go, we're running out of time. I can imagine, because another important one, your beneficiary on your life policy overrides whatever you say in your will.

So if I go and I've got a scallop on the side and I decide, listen, I changed the beneficiary on my policy to my girlfriend, but my will says my wife in here, it's everything. She's not going to get the money on the policy because the policy's beneficiary overrides the will. So make sure that you don't forget to change your beneficiaries on your policies. If you get divorced or those conflicts. Yes. Look at me. I did not do that. Now it's done though. Another interesting thing is when you do get a divorce, the court gives you six months to make changes to your will. If you don't or you forget and you pass away seven months down the line and your will still says your ex-wife inherits everything. She will inherit everything. So because the court then look at it and says, oh, you still wanted her to have everything. You had six months to change. So please be careful of that. Okay. We've spoken about the executor. I'm not going to speak about that again. One thing I just always suggest to people is get a company to do the executorship. Don't give your wife that nightmare. It's really not worth it. We've got structures in place where that cost can be covered so that you don't have to pay that cost.

So it's not going to come out of the estate. Just get a professional to do it and they will come and explain it to people how we manage that cost. Now, question. I mean, if somebody is listening tonight and they want to draw up a will, do you guys offer that service? We go out, we sit with them in their house and we go when it's comfortable and we chat and we get it done. What sort of investment are they looking at? So what we do is as an outreach program, we send it for this month. We send people for free to go and meet with clients to draw up. Really? Yeah. So we've really gone in February and said, we want to get as many people to get their will sorted out as we can. So we will come out. We will sit with you for 45 minutes and we'll come and do your will. That's brilliant. Okay. So there's no excuse. There's no cost excuse. It's literally taking 45 minutes with your wife, sit with somebody, talk about these things. I know it's sometimes uncomfortable, but just get it done. It's very, very important. Okay. So trustees. So remember I said trustees is in charge of the money that has to go to the children and has to manage that money. So what I usually suggest here is for people to have a company as a trustee, but have a private individual as a trustee as well.

And I'm going to explain why I say that. So it's called a co-trustee. So they combine the company, the institution and the private individual makes decisions on the children's finances. Now this is my personal opinion. This is not something that's written in a textbook. This is my personal opinion. I just feel that if you have a company that looks off your children's finances, they have no emotional investment in that child. They're going to look at purely from a financial point of view. A person will have an emotional investment in the child. They might not have the financial acumen, but they will have the child's best interest or not. And I just feel if you put those two together, you'll get a much more balanced decision-making process than having either just a company or either just a private individual. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That's my personal opinion. Okay. The next one is people ask me, but to what age should I make the will? The trust. Yeah. So initially when I started in the industry, the normal age was 21. Now it's 18. I believe you make that age 25. And again, I'll explain why and again, my personal opinion that I tell people. When a child is 21, think back when you were 21.

Let's say you get five million. Oh, was I? Oh, was I? Oh, again. I would have blown it so fast your head would have spun. No idea. Yeah. So making it up to 25 doesn't mean your child won't have access to it. Doesn't mean your child won't be able to start their own business. The only difference is if they want to start their own business, they're going to have to sit with the trustees and put a business plan together and say to the trustees, this is what I want to invest money into. This is the business. This is the plan. So you're getting expert advice that looks with your child to make those decisions instead of him getting his money at 21 and starting a pyramid scheme business that I won't name it, but I don't think it's, listen, I think, look, I think the 21 year old's not going to be happy, but I think, you know, it's, it's, it's sound advice. Yeah. So I always say to people, let it go until 25. Okay. The other one is that I say to people is don't make the guardian of your child, which is the person who's going to look after your child's physical wellbeing. Yeah. So I say to the guardian, the trustee as well, because you can trust people to the nth degree, but when that person suddenly has access to 10 million rand, people's minds start working differently.

They start thinking differently and don't think people can't justify everything. There's a saying that says nobody does anything wrong given their model of the world. And we start justifying everything to say, geez, we're in big trouble now. I'm just going to arrange for that much money because it's in the child's best interest in any case. So, and then I'll give it back and then that goes and becomes more and becomes more before you know, it's been mismanaged. No, these are my principles. If you don't like them, I do have others. Exactly. So that's my personal advice to people. Okay. Okay. Um, okay. Another thing you need to look at with your estate is to make sure that you have enough cash in your estate to settle all the debts. So I see a lot of clients there with their whole life cover, all just as their wife as the beneficiary. So they've got 5 million life cover and their wife is the beneficiary and there's no physical cash going into the estate. So now the properties in the estate, the cause on the estate, all that data have to be paid, but there's no assets. There's no cash to pay these things. You need to look at your estate and say, how much do I need to have paid into the estate to make sure all the assets or all the debts are paid?

So make sure there's enough cash in your estate. So even if you go and you take your beneficiary on your policy and you make 30% of that, uh, go according to your will and the rest goes directly to your wife. Otherwise your wife is going to have to take some of the cash she's received and then pay it back into the estate. Otherwise they're going to start selling assets in the estate to cover the cost. Okay. Well, I think we're going to wrap up there. One final few things, but yeah, there's one final question that's just coming in, can, can a BCOM accountant be an executor or must it be a CA? I'm not a hundred percent sure to be honest. They talk about a professional in the financial industry, um, or legal industry. So if a BCOM is, I don't think a BCOM is qualified as a professional, um, but I, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Um, it's something that you must just go and see. All right. I see. It looks like there was a glitch in the WhatsApp cause messages are pouring and we don't have time to get to all your messages now. Um, Lauren's paste email for people to get hold of you on is, can we use the, the, the Yeah. Let them, if people haven't, let me do it like this. If people have a general inquiry, like I'm looking for somebody to help me set up a will please use info@retirehappy.0za.

If somebody has a very specific problem that they want specific help on, then they can use mine, but please don't just send me 200 emails because I know for effect that Lauren's gets many, many, many, many, many emails. Yeah. So you're probably going to be helped faster getting through info. Yeah. Just asking for, I need somebody to help me with a wall. If you have a specific query, send it, I'll have a look at it and reply. There we go. So I think that's the best thing. We just, there's too much. We added time. We've got another special guest coming up so thank you so much, Lawrence. Thanks mate. I really appreciate it. Can't wait till next month. Geez. It went, it flew by this time again, huh? As per usual. Yeah. As per usual. Anyway, so of April, 4th of April, 4th of April, the next forum, I hope you got those one last time. Okay. And that is RRH and your name to 45509, otherwise RRH and your name to 0826413555. We'll see you at the end of March. Yeah. Lawrence, your brother. There we go. It is what's involved. Proudly brought to you by Retire Rich and Happy this Monday evening.