Source: Radio New Zealand
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My dad passed away in 2015. While he was sick, he and his partner both wrote wills. In his will he said if he died the house he built would be sold after my stepmother died and the money divided up between me, my sister and my three stepsisters. They wrote matching wills. After he passed, she stayed in the house at least a year then sold it and bought another house. She changed her will so only her children would get the money from the house sale. Is there anything I can do?
Michelle Pope, principal trustee from Public Trust, said there are some general points that could help.
She says you should start by getting a copy of your father’s will and understanding how the home was owned when he died.
“That information is central to understanding what rights and interests each party may have had, and whether any specific conditions were attached to the house or other assets.
“Many couples make matching or ‘mirror’ wills, and there’s a common assumption that this means the surviving partner can’t later change their will. Unless the wills were legally mutual – meaning there was a clear, binding agreement not to change certain provisions after the first death – the surviving partner is generally free to update their own will. Mirror and mutual wills are often confused, but they are not the same.
“How the house was owned is a key issue in situations like this, because it determines whether the property became part of the estate or passed automatically to the surviving owner.”
If your dad and stepmother owned the house jointly, it would have passed automatically to her when he died and not been part of his estate.
“If this is the case, the house belongs to the surviving joint owner and they are free to decide what to do with it.
“If the house was owned solely by your dad or as ‘tenants in common’ with your stepmother, your dad’s ownership of the house may have remained part of the estate and protected for the beneficiaries named in the will. In some cases, wills give the surviving partner a life interest, allowing them to live in or use the property during their lifetime (or receive the income from it), with the value passing to beneficiaries later.
“Whether you have any interest in your stepmother’s new home depends on what, if any, interest you have in your dad’s estate. It is possible that if your stepmother had a life interest that gave her the right to sell the initial property and buy another, your dad’s interest may have transferred to that replacement property. “
When it comes to his other belongings, Pope said that unless a will set out household and personal effects to someone in particular, families often decided among themselves how things were divided.
“Where there is a spouse or partner, it is not unusual that they would keep most of these items because they are considered assets of the relationship. This can be hard for children, particularly when items of sentimental value are sold or given away, as the law doesn’t always reflect their emotional significance.
“At Public Trust, we specifically ask people when they’re making a will whether there are particular belongings they want to go to specific people. This helps create clarity and reduce misunderstandings for families later on.”
She said if you were still not sure, you could speak to the executor of your father’s estate, who would have been responsible for administering the will. You could then seek legal advice if you were not happy with the information you were given.
I am a personal investor and an active one. I do it because I love it. I have a problem with the managed fund industry in that they are very careless with the truth. When they claim to have achieved a return of say 8 percent, if they have been investing in NZ shares they should say that the client has contributed 4 percent or 6 percent from the dividends they have foregone.
New Zealand has two main types of funds – accumulating and distributing.
KiwiSaver funds are accumulating funds. They reinvest the dividends that they get from investing back into the fund rather than paying them out to investors.
When accumulating funds talk about the returns they are giving investors, they include the dividends that are reinvested.
If a fund pays out, when it reports returns, it includes the dividend in that return.
Rupert Carlyon, founder of Koura KiwiSaver, point sout that the NZX50 is an index that includes dividends in return calculations, but the S&P500 is not. It only includes price movements.
He said investors comparing the performance of their share portfolio versus the performance of a managed funds should think about the dividends, too.
“When looking at returns we always want to look at total returns after fees.
“If anything, I would argue fund managers are doing it correctly and individual investors should probably be talking about a slightly higher return.”
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