Sixth edition

Based on a highly acclaimed UK title, DRAFTING TRUSTS AND WILL TRUSTS IN AUSTRALIA has been comprehensively adapted to provide authoritative guidance on drafting trusts and will trusts in eight Australian jurisdictions. Providing both a comprehensive range of precedents and a wealth of valuable advice, DRAFTING TRUSTS AND WILL TRUSTS IN AUSTRALIA cuts through verbosity and helps you to understand and prepare trust documents your client wants and needs. The book features chapters on key areas of trust law, including beneficiaries, trustees, trustee's powers and general provisions of a trust. DRAFTING TRUSTS AND WILL TRUSTS IN AUSTRALIA also offers a large number of precedents for both lifetime and will trusts. The precedents, which appear in printed form and on an accompanying CD-Rom, reveal a fresh approach to creating documents. A unique addition to the Australian market, DRAFTING TRUSTS AND WILL TRUSTS IN AUSTRALIA is an essential reference for those practising in tax law, estate and succession planning, family law and property law.

This book focuses upon two themes: the definition of 'family' and the impact of the expansion of the concept of 'family' in law: and family fights over wills and estates - what recourse family members may have in challenging an estate. The first part, `The challenge of the "new family" for Law', considers the challenge both in the inter vivos and the postmortem contexts in the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. A particular focus is upon the dramatic expansion of the definition of family from the traditional nuclear family consisting of a husband, wife and their mutual children to a definition that includes unmarried heterosexual and same sex couples living together and, in some jurisdictions to new kinds of companionate partnerships that are not based on a sexual relationship. In some jurisdictions such developments are simply an expression of sharing responsibility by allocating it in the private domain, as opposed to the public potentially through social welfare; in others, particularly in the United States, it is a defence of fundamental institutions and, with it, a defence of society itself. The second part, 'Family fights over wills and estates', examines the law in Australia, Switzerland, France, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Its comparison of civil and common law approaches shows how the law expresses the same principle objects - protection of family and obligations towards key family members - but does so from entirely different perspectives; and where the common law which enshrined the notion of testamentary freedom is being qualified through the expanding domain of family provision legislation, the civil law which is based on codified shares and allocated responsibilities expressed through proportionate entitlements in estates, is being qualified through a range of disqualifying and varying mechanisms.

Succession, Wills and Probate is an ideal textbook for those taking an undergraduate course in this surprisingly vibrant subject, and also provides a clear and comprehensive introduction for professionals. Against an account of the main social and political themes of succession law, the book gives detailed explanations of core topics such as alternatives to wills and the making, altering and revocation of wills. It also explains personal representatives and how they should deal with a deceased person's estate and interpret and implement the will. Gifts may fail, estates may be insolvent or a person may die intestate, without a will at all. Increasingly relatives and others seek to challenge the will, for example on the grounds of the testator's capacity or under the law of family provision. This third edition is edited, updated and revised to take account of new legislation and case law across all the relevant issues, including a new final chapter dealing with the potentially contentious issues that are becoming more central to professional work in the field of succession.

The third edition of Wills, Probate and Estates has been written to provide trainee solicitors with a clear and thorough understanding of current best practice in the area of wills, trusts, probate and the administration of estates. The manual takes into account recent changes in legislation, particularly the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act, 2009, the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act, 2010 and certain relevant changes to the Capital Acquisitions Tax Consolidation Act, 2003. The book outlines the basic elements of a will, familiarizing trainees with the common law and statutory background enabling them to draft wills and simple trusts in accordance with statute and their clients' informed instructions. The manual goes on to deal with obtaining the necessary grant of representation on the death of a client, either with or without a will, and administering such an estate. Wills, Probate and Estates provides succinct and practical advice, provided by solicitors for solicitors, tackling questions of practice and procedure that are of central importance not only for students on the Professional Practice Course, but also to practitioners who deal with any area of wills, trusts, probate or the administration of estates.