LEGACY SOLUTIONS

International Will

The Lighthouse International Will (LIW) is primarily designed for persons with wealth and assets located in multiple jurisdictions, and for mixed-domicile marriages.

The LIW conforms to most international laws, conventions and practices for testate matters, and will be accepted by most jurisdictions as valid and legal. Without the LIW, you need a separate Will for each jurisdiction in which you hold assets, in addition to a valid Will for your country of domicile.

The LIW simplifies your planning arrangements and associated costs. Upon your death, the LIW will enable probate to be completed much more quickly, reduce estate administration costs, and expedite the distribution of your estate ( where so ever it might be).

The features of the LIW can be extended to include trust structures to safeguard the residual interests of your spouse (e.g. maintenance trust) and children (e.g. education trust); where you deem it appropriate to exercise some control over how your wealth should be distributed or managed.

The LIW can be amended or revoked at any time whilst you are alive. Lighthouse provides each client with confidential storage facilities for one original copy of your LIW. That way, if your personal copies are lost or destroyed it is not the end of the World.

The LIW is not intended or designed as a tax planning tool. Its sole purpose is to execute your legal wishes as quickly and as cost-efficiently as possible in the event of your death. The proceeds from your estate will therefore be subject to any taxes and duties applicable to the jurisdictions where you hold assets, and your country of Domicile.

For persons with simpler or urgent requirements, we do offer a Basic Will so you can at least have something.

For tax planning purposes, we have the Lighthouse Succession Trust (LST) available to manage and mitigate these more complex needs. Please contact your Lighthouse financial adviser to discuss further.

Dependent children
If you have dependent children and no valid will; and should both parents die; your children will be made wards of court in their country of current residence while the domicile country court arranges for custody transfer.If both parents are nationals of different countries, then the matter can become quite complicated and lengthy.

Upon custody being transferred to the applicable domicile, any potential Guardian (at their own personal cost) will need to petition the court holding custody for their direct approval before custody can be granted to the Guardian. The process and requirements needing to be met by potential Guardians are substantial, and it is quite common for courts to reject petitions by potential Guardians – or for the potential Guardian to run out of money due to legal cost.

Without a valid Will, the court will decide the fate of your children.

Jointly-held assets
It is not uncommon for joint bank accounts to be frozen where there is no survivorship clause in your service agreement with your bank. You may be surprised to learn that a very high proportion of banks across the World do not include this clause in their standard service agreements.

You will find that almost all debt-based agreements (mortgage, credit card, hire purchase etc) do have survivorship clauses inside the agreement. This will mean that payment liability passes to your spouse if joint (e.g. mortgage) or your estate, and interest will continue to accrue. The bank or credit company is entitled to freeze supplementary credit facilities (credit cards), or even fore close on an asset should payment be in arrears or risk is now deemed unacceptable.

Your assets
In the event of your death, your assets are frozen because title and interest in your assets will no longer be clear and immutable. This will include your property, bank accounts, investments, shareholdings, chattels and so on. Your survivors will not be able to access or dispose of any of your assets to raise cash to live on, for example. This can often also apply to shared ownership assets. A business share cannot be sold or transferred, even if by doing so it would keep the business solvent. Nor would your spouse be able to dispose of your jointly owned property even if doing so could avoid foreclosure.

How your assets are released, and how quickly depend much upon whether you have a valid Will for the jurisdiction in which the assets are located. Further delay is also likely if your wishes stated in your will are not made clearly and precisely, since the court will then be required to interpret your wishes and intent for you.

When you die…
Where you have a valid Will (testate) your chosen Executor will need to appoint a lawyer for each jurisdiction to apply to their court for a Grant of Probate (GP). Depending on the jurisdiction and asset complexity, GP can take from three months to one year or more to be completed.

Without a valid Will (intestate), your ‘potential’ beneficiaries will need to appoint (by unanimous agreement) one or more Administrators to act as your Executor; who will then need to appoint a lawyer in each jurisdiction to apply for Letters of Administration (LA). In each jurisdiction, LA is much more complex and time-consuming since there is no valid record of your wishes, and as such, each court is now forced to decide on your behalf, taking into account any petitions submitted by potential beneficiaries through their legal counsel. Generally, LA often takes 2-5 years, but can be much longer -particularly if there are disputes between potential beneficiaries.

Once the Executor or Administrators have completed GP or LA in each jurisdiction you hold assets, your estate documentation can now pass to your Domicile jurisdiction for final GP or LA, and be assessed for estate taxes that might apply. Upon completion of this final process; all taxes and duties have been paid; outstanding or accrued debts have been cleared; and legal bills paid; your net estate can now (finally) be distributed to your beneficiaries.

ImportantNotes

The information herein is based on our understanding of current common and general law, International testate conventions and the principles and practices prevailing in most jurisdictions around the world; and will be subject to, and affected by future changes in legislation in each jurisdiction. Therefore the LIW cannot be, or be expected to be, guaranteed to be accepted in all legal jurisdictions

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