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Estate Administration: the hidden cost of not having a Family Home Trust

 

Asset Protection in the Digital Age 

 

As more and more New Zealanders are wisely opting to protect their assets by establishing a family trust, it's time to ask yourself one question: can you afford not to put your home in a family trust? The answer is no, it's not worth the risk. Compared to the minimal cost of setting up a trust structure, the consequences of not having your home fully protected in a family trust could be financially crippling. Without the guarantees laid out in a trust deed, any efforts to handle and distribute an estate's assets as specified will incur estate administration fees to the tune of thousands of dollars - many thousands!

 

Estate Administration Fees

 

What's worse, many estate administration fees are calculated hourly, usually at a rate of $250 to $300 per hour. A homeowner can lose plenty of sleep over those kinds of rates, don't you agree? Setting up a family home trust, on the other hand, entails a very modest one-time fee, and it can be arranged online in no time. There are, of course, nominal service fees, but they don't charge you an arm and a leg for every little action required, as estate administrators will do nowadays.

 

What is estate administration?

 

Estate administration is carrying out a person's wishes as detailed in his or her will, and it can cost a pretty penny to ensure assets are transferred to the beneficiaries according to the letter of the will. This can take months or even years, and don't forget those $250 to $300 per hour charges you'll incur for every little bump in the road.

 

Challenges to a Will can drain you financially

 

Even when careful planning goes into a will, circumstances sometimes bring legal challenges to the will. These unwelcome challenges may have no merit, but they cannot be ignored. For example, if your favorite uncle stipulated very specific instructions for wealth transfer in his will, those assets may be threatened by someone who pops up pretending to be a long-lost relative, or even a heretofore unknown secret love child - stranger things have happened to wills. Through the eyes of a New Zealand estate administrator, each challenge to a will is a big payday, and they often charge each beneficiary fees for the same challenge.

 

How costly are estate administration fees?

 

Simply stated, unless you're a multi-millionaire, these administration costs can eat into the estate. There is no end to the niggly details of will executions. For instance, the leading estate administration companies around here charge an average hourly rate of $220 for Level 1 regular tasks, $250 for Level 2 specialized tasks, and $300 for Level 3 complex accounting tasks. Translation:

 

  • LEVEL 1 - Typing, filing, routine office work, phone calls, and e-mails
  • LEVEL 2 - Funeral arrangements, collecting monies for the estate, settling feuds amongst beneficiaries, confirming eligibility, and managing property and business assets
  • LEVEL 3 - Computing and billing your estate administration charges

 

So why not protect your major asset, your family home and set up a family home trust today. Register with TrustUs today and save yourself thousands as well as thousands from estate administration fees in the future.

 

Its in your hands.