Structuring trusts for intergenerational transfers

As set out in earlier posts, and with thanks to the Television Education Network, today’s post addresses the issue of ‘Structuring trusts for intergenerational transfers’ at the following link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Sna2eXvag

As usual, a transcript of the presentation for those that cannot (or choose not) to view the presentation is below –

Probably the biggest risk when structuring trusts is to look at any particular issue in isolation.

Obviously, asset protection from a family law perspective is critical and fundamental in many situations. However, it is also important to be factoring in a myriad of commercial and revenue issues, such as tax, stamp duty and GST.

There's also related issues in terms of asset protection from a bankruptcy perspective, and the overall estate and succession planning objectives.

There are a number of adjacent issues that mean whenever an arrangement is put in place, it must be reviewed regularly.

Adopting a holistic approach is absolutely critical if steps are being considered immediately before a relationship actually breaks down, because arguably the one key principle, not just out of Spry, but out of all the family law cases in recent times, is that the courts will look very dimly on any such steps.

Party de-identification in court decisions

As a general statement, one of the key principles of the court system in Australia is that of open justice. The vast majority of cases are held in an open court, and the decisions when released, provide a full factual background and detailed analysis of the relevant legal issues.

This said, the principles of open justice do not automatically require the publication of the identity of the parties involved.

Particularly where the court believes that an individual involved in the case would be impacted on adversely in terms of their privacy and dignity, their personal details are often de-identified when the decision of the case is released.

The three primary techniques used in this regard are:

a. referring to the parties by reference to initials;

b. referring to the case simply by reference to a number; and

c. particularly in family court cases, a protocol is often adopted where the first initial of the parties’ names is used and the same number of letters are also used, however an entirely new word is created. For example, a case involving a party named 'Burgess' may instead be referred to as the case of 'Boseman'.

Image credit: Jack cc

Spry enforcement proceedings

As set out in earlier posts, and with thanks to the Television Education Network, today’s post addresses the issue of ‘Spry enforcement proceedings’ at the following link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ewuWIpJE3g

As usual, a transcript of the presentation for those that cannot (or choose not) to view the presentation is below –

Stephens is the case about the actual enforcement proceedings of the Spry case and it reinforces just how wide powers of the court are, in terms of making and implementing decisions under the property settlement regime.

In the particular case of Stephens, there were aspects of the judgment that saw transactions that took place after the relationship had broken down, completely ignored and unwound.

What the court also did was unwind transactions that had taken place before the relationship had broken down as well as those which related to third parties. For example, independent trustees and the children of the relationship who had been involved in those transactions were actually forced to comply with orders, that on the face of it just applied to Dr and Mrs Spry.

Apple iTunes Podcasts launched by View

Leveraging our successful webinar series, View is excited to announce the launch of our iTunes podcast channel. 

In creating this new service we have joined the thousands of public and commercial broadcasters, renowned celebrities and independent podcasters on iTunes giving you immediate free access via your iphone, ipad or computer to specialist content across a range of topics. 

Each podcast contains 60 minutes of audio content from View’s various webinar and seminar programs.  The podcasts can be found on our website at the following link – http://viewlegal.com.au/view-legal-podcast/ or directly on iTunes – simply search ‘View Legal’.

Podcasts already released include –

(a) Failed Trust Distributions

(b) Estate planning and asset protection

(c) Superannuation and estate planning

(d) Are you ready for June 30?

(e) Testamentary trusts - the fundamentals

Making our webinars available as podcasts offers yet another mode of accessing specialist content and the ability to ‘try before you buy’ – recordings giving access to the full video presentation of each webinar and seminar are also available via our website in DVD, USB and streaming formats – see http://viewlegal.com.au/recorded-webinars/ 

New View podcasts will be released on iTunes every few weeks, so consider subscribing for automatic notification.