Jane Argyle-Reed - Wills Month

It's the final day of Wills Month! However it's never too late to get your will sorted. Luke caught up with legal eagle Jane Argyle-Reed to ask why it's so important. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Final day of September, Final day of wills months, which
is our annual reminder to get our affairs in order,
was joined in studio by go to Legal Eagle Jane
our goal read from our goal Welsh Finnegan and a
good place to start asking what is a will, Jane?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Will is a document which sets out your testamentary intentions.
Here we go big words. Not wake up for that,
I know, but it sets out what you want to
have happen with your assets. I think the thing for
me is for us what we see professionally is that
it's really stressful for people where there isn't one in

(00:41):
place and somebody passes away suddenly, because it's it's a
lot of administration for the people left behind and where
there's no will in place. Unfortunately, it can also mean
that people who you don't want to be making decisions
or to benefit from your assets are the one as
that do.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, what's the sort of stuff that will forces us
to think about?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's forces you think to think about who would be
the best people to make decisions for you about where
your assets go. So, whether it's investment money, you know
who you're leaving in charge to, for example, sort out
your bank accounts, sort out your keyw saver?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Is it an executor? Executors? Hey, look at me with
the terms now, So.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
It needs to be somebody that knows, for example, where
your bank accounts are held and those sort of things. Hey, yep,
there needs to be somebody that has a bit of
knowledge about your assets, but also has some good decision
making in terms of assets and includes things like guardianship,
so sets out who would look after and make the
decisions for your children where you're no longer with us.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
That's a big one.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It is a big one. And that the common misconception
that people have around guardianship is that you need to
decide at this point who your kids live with. It's
not about that at all. It's about who you and
your wife think would be the best people to make
decisions for your children. So it's guardianship is things like
medical care, schooling, those sort of things. So you don't

(02:12):
have to decide now where the kids go. It's about
the people that would make the decisions for them.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Ah, right, where do we keep a will? Who looks
after that?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
We would generally do that, So that's.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
With your lawyer. Yeah, okay, that's good. I'd trust you
more with it than myself. I'd put it in the
corner of the bench, you know, where all the junk
mail and the voting papers for the local election end up,
and then you sort of it'll just it'll just gets
forgotten about.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
That, because the other thing about it is that the
process when someone does pass away is that the will
is if there's a well in place, then that there's
an application for probate which goes through the High Court
at Wellington. And if there's an anomaly with the will,
for example, if the staples being removed in the corner,
or if there's a watermark on the well, then there'll
need to be an explanation as to why, just to

(02:58):
prevent their being a suggestion that the well has been.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Whimpered west Oh, that's sinister, isn't that? It took a
Sherlock Holmes turn real quick.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
So there's really clear Wells rules in the Wells Act
about how awell has to be witnessed and dated and
so forth.