Protecting Your Adult Child: Wills, EPAs and BDBNs Explained

‘Horrifying’ - the very high numbers in the 18-25 age group, when it comes to serious impairment or death from accidents.

‘Unimaginable’ - the difficulties for parents who have to suddenly manage life with a young adult child who has lost decision making capacity or worse still manage the estate of a child lost to them.

Coping with those difficulties is made worse, sometimes beyond belief, if the child doesn’t have an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) or a Will.

Parents – you’ll be having a hard enough time as it is – you don’t want it to be any harder.

Without an appropriate EPA or Will parents won’t have a right to properly manage their child’s affairs if tragedy strikes.

Think about the heartache of being unable to access or control bank accounts, superannuation, (including default superannuation insurance), vehicles, social media accounts etc etc.

Parents will need to make a formal application for those rights of access and control - to QCAT, in the case of impairment and the Supreme Court in the case of death. Unfortunately, there isn’t a guarantee that a parent will be given any or sufficiently flexible rights, especially in the case of impairment. The situation is even more complicated if there are separated parents, step parents, or girlfriends/boyfriends.

Making those applications eats up valuable time, money and energy – not to mention the terrible distraction from trying to care for a suddenly impaired adult child or trying to cherish memories while grieving.

So far, these comments are about control and access. Space does not permit me to detail the possible horror stories of who is entitled to receive your adult child’s assets on death without an appropriate Will and Binding Death Benefit Nomination (BDBN).

A properly drawn EPA, Will and BDBN should mean that control, access and benefit are as your child wishes. And the transition into managing your child’s affairs should then be as smooth as circumstances allow. Most importantly you will be able to focus on the all-important care or grieving.

A worthwhile 18^th birthday gift for your child with very real benefits for you as parents.

Call MMLaw if you’d like to explore this further.

Peter Porcellini | Special Counsel

MMLaw

The information in this document represents general information and should not be relied on for your specific circumstances. If you require legal advice and assistance on the matters contained or associated in this document you should contact MMLaw.