Estate planning is the process of ensuring that everything you have built — your investments, your property, your business interests, your life assurance policies — transfers to the right people, in the right way, at the right time, and with the minimum possible loss to tax and executor's fees. It includes your will, but it goes significantly further: beneficiary nominations, trust structures, estate liquidity, and the coordination of all your financial instruments to work together at death.
Dying without a proper estate plan in South Africa means your estate goes through a lengthy, expensive intestate process. But even dying with a will is not enough if your beneficiary nominations contradict it — which they commonly do. An investment account paid to a nominated beneficiary bypasses your will entirely. A life policy paid into your estate rather than directly to a beneficiary is subject to executor's fees and estate duty. These errors, unaddressed, can cost your family hundreds of thousands of rands and years of legal complexity.
As a financial planner with an LLB, I review your complete financial and legal picture — your will, your beneficiary nominations, your trust structures, your life assurance, and your investment holdings — and identify every point of misalignment. I then work with you to correct them, drafting or updating your will where needed and ensuring your estate plan is legally sound and financially efficient.
Anyone with accumulated assets, a family, a business interest, or a life assurance policy. Estate planning is not only for the wealthy — it is for anyone who wants to protect the people they leave behind.
Not always — but trusts are powerful tools for asset protection, estate duty reduction, and providing for minor children or dependants with special needs. Whether you need one depends on your specific estate and goals. We assess this together.
A retirement annuity does not form part of your estate and is not covered by your will. The trustees of the fund distribute it at their discretion, guided by the Pension Funds Act. Ensuring your nominated dependants are correctly recorded is critical.
After every major life event — marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, a significant acquisition or business change, or the death of a beneficiary or executor.