The recent newspaper stories regarding
the case in New York of Mr Roman Blum highlights the importance of writing a
Will. Mr Blum was a Jewish survivor of the holocaust in the second world war,
and after the war he moved to the United States and built up a substantial
fortune in the region of $40 million dollars. Mr Blum passed away in January
2012 and it appears that he did not leave a Will. Despite extensive searches in
America and around the world, it now appears that Mr Blum also had no living
relatives, and therefore the government is going to be the beneficiary of his
estate.
The situation in Queensland would be
very similar. If someone passes away without a Will then the Succession Act
sets out a formula for distribution of the estate between certain relatives who
survive the person who has passed away (which may of course not be the distribution
that you would choose if you wrote a Will) and if there are no such surviving
relatives then the estate will go to the government.
To ensure that your estate goes to
the people that you wish to benefit, in the shares that you wish them to
receive, is it vital to ensure that you have an up to date Will.
