The average Australian has 2.4 bank accounts. That figure might sound modest, but it masks a more complicated reality. Between everyday transaction accounts, high-interest savings, offset accounts, business accounts, and accounts opened for specific purposes then forgotten, many people have far more banking relationships than they actively track. The rise of neobanking has only accelerated…
Around half of Australians don’t have a valid will. This statistic gets trotted out regularly, usually followed by warnings about intestacy or urgent calls to “get your affairs in order.” But the repetition hasn’t moved the needle. The number stays roughly the same, year after year, despite an entire industry dedicated to fixing it. The…
Here’s the problem with how we talk about estate planning: we’ve positioned it as something you do when death is imminent, when really it’s something you should be thinking about from the moment you start accumulating anything worth transferring. Most 30-year-olds don’t have an estate plan. Research shows that approximately 52% of Australian adults don’t…
When Steve Jobs died in 2011, most of the world mourned a visionary who had transformed entire industries. But there was something else remarkable about his death that received less attention: nobody knows exactly how his $7 billion estate was structured, and that was entirely by design. Not because Jobs was particularly enthusiastic about building…
Spitting into a tube has become a rite of passage for millions of Australians. Consumer DNA testing services like Ancestry, 23andMe, and MyHeritage have transformed kitchen tables into genetics laboratories, revealing ethnic origins, health predispositions, and long-lost relatives with remarkable ease. What began as curiosity about family history has evolved into vast databases of genetic…
Australians now hold more digital assets than ever, yet the law barely recognises them. That gap is about to close, with clarity. The Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2025 proposes sweeping reforms for digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. With over 31% of Australians now owning cryptocurrency, this fundamentally reshapes how custody works and how…
The traditional view of investment follows a predictable arc: accumulate in youth, preserve in middle age, and distribute in later years. Yet this linear narrative misses a fundamental truth about wealth. Capital doesn’t simply disappear at the end of life – it transforms, transfers, and begins anew. Research shows that inheritance represents not an endpoint,…
Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Estate administration in Australia involves two distinct phases that families often confuse. The probate grant itself takes just weeks to obtain. However, the complete estate settlement process stretches for months or years, creating significant costs and uncertainty for beneficiaries….
Estate planning has a terrible reputation. Most Australians think it’s about death, taxes, and tedious paperwork. They imagine stuffy lawyers’ offices filled with dusty legal documents. The whole process feels morbid and overwhelming. This perception is completely wrong and it’s costing families their most meaningful opportunities. Estate planning isn’t about death. It’s about life continuing…
Australian estate planning is stuck in the past. We’re still shuffling paper documents between law firms. Executors spend months chasing bank statements and property deeds. Beneficiaries wait in the dark, wondering what’s happening to their inheritance. This system worked fine fifty years ago. Today, it’s painfully inefficient and unnecessarily risky. Every year, valuable documents disappear…
