Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Age of majority



Last week an interesting issue arose with the child of a client who was about to travel overseas on an exchange. 

The child was a part time employee and member of a superannuation fund. Under the superannuation fund, they were automatically entitled to a life insurance policy which gave a payout of $200,000 on death. The fund required that any payout be made to the legal representative of a deceased member.

The parents of the child felt that it would be prudent to ensure that on receipt of these insurance proceeds the estate would be able to administer them easily – the obvious answer in this regard was the creation of a will.

Unfortunately, in these circumstances, no will is able to be made because in order to make a will, the individual involved must be 18 years of age.

The only substantive exception to this rule is if the will maker, being under the age of 18 years, has lawfully married.

Until next week.