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A will and testament is a written expression of your wishes and directions to your representative (often your spouse or family member above age of 18 years) to, usually:
A will and testament takes effect on death and if properly attested by witnesses who can certify that you signed the will in their presence, provided all legal requirements are satisfied and in the absence of any fraud or forgery, the court of the relevant country shall then issue an order of court called a Grant of Probate.
Globalization and the internet have opened up a multitude of overseas investment portfolios and offshore assets and accounts are no longer limited to the elite. Our principal legal consultant’s specialization for the last 26 years have met such discerning clienteles’ testament needs and we have been appointed to draw up the following:
The Living Will or Advance Medical Directives as its name implies, is to convey to those in charge of your medical care ahead of time your wishes, especially important at a time when you are unable to verbally tell them. Many countries have a standard form of advance medical directive. They are often in a prescribed format, sometimes not very desirable to make your wishes known.
Technically, a Living Will does not carry the same legal status as an Advance Directive or a Last Will and Testament, but it states your wishes about your medical treatment if you’re caught in a medical crisis and cannot make yourself understood. This unfortunate state may occur because of stroke, brain damage, unconscious condition, or where sedation or pain relief forces you into a coma.
An Advance Medical Directive can also cover related personal wishes such as religious requirements or organ donation.
Advance Medical Directives by adult patients of sound mind have been accepted by the courts in a number of countries. There has been growing judicial control of decision-making regarding treatment and withdrawal of treatment at a time when patients are without capacity. This issue has attracted much controversy but two considerations have emerged as being sound and should prevent abusive or negligent implementation of an Advance Medical Directive:
A trust is a fiduciary arrangement that allows a trustee to hold assets on behalf of a beneficiary or beneficiaries usually until a fixed date in the future or the happening of an event stipulated under the trust.
Listed here are two of our Trust Services:
Individual Trust
A trust can be created in your will and testament to safe guard the following :
Family Trust
This is also known as a discretionary trust where the trust structure has tax advantages and asset protection as its underlying basis. A discerning business owner or family business group knows how to use a family trust as a legal instrument to ensure that the family business legacy is succeeded by many generations down the line.
Besides gaining the tax benefits afforded by such a trust, the protective edge is that the assets in the trust are generally out of reach of creditors of the beneficiaries. Such trust protects the beneficiary from their own individual defaults and ensures successful succession of the family’s business legacy.
We, HERITANCE WILLS work with our affiliated partners like investment banks to construct family trusts in line with the family’s business vision and financial plans to carry on the legacy of the family business into the future.
For the creation of an individual or family trust, we offer the following services:
The role and legal burden of an executor in a will is both important and onerous. He or she functions as the representative of the deceased, to ensure that the deceased’s wishes is fully carried out. The usual persons appointed as executors are the spouse or partner of the deceased, the eldest child or the child deemed responsible or equipped to handle the task at hand. Professionals such as solicitors or accountants are also good candidates to be executors.
Professional Executor Services
In the case of the expatriate residing in Malaysia for a reasonable period of time, having a professional experienced in execution of estates from HERITANCE WILLS acting as the executor is the wiser and practical appointment for the following reasons:
Executor Advisory Services
As the role of an executor is many and varied from arranging the funeral to interpreting the will, to identifying and collecting assets, to distributing inheritances, and to acting as a trustee for long term trusts; it may be too overwhelming for the lay executor who is grieving the lost of a loved one.
Our professional executor advisory services at HERITANCE WILLS can help with, among other things, the following:
Making a will is only but a first step towards safeguarding your loved ones. In order for your representative in your will called your executor to execute your estate in favor of your beneficiaries; he or she must be empowered by a court order called a Grant of Probate.
Our principal legal consultant at HERITANCE WILLS have had the benefit of legal hindsight in assisting numerous probate applications in Malaysia and overseas. Hence, it is our preliminary best practice to advise all our will writing clients as to the probate procedure upfront for them to appreciate how to avoid leaving loopholes in their wills when making out their desired bequests. One example of a loophole is failure to expressly exclude an “heir” out of their will.
So how do you go about drawing up your will? Our answer is 3Cs.
At HERITANCE WILLS, we make the will writing process simple and easy for you. Our preliminary steps shall ensure that you are sufficiently guided as to how to start and complete your wills within a week from receipt of full information from you, as some of our clients have attested to in our TESTIMONIAL page. We discourage prolonging the process for longer than necessary as we do recognize that drawing up a will may be an emotional exercise for some, hence getting it done fast and getting it done right is our assurance to you
You shall be furnished with our Checklist to start off. This Checklist contains questions about your personal information which you will find easy to prepare. Then, one of our team members shall get in touch with you, preferably via email to ensure that all questions from you on our Checklist are attended to. If you have any questions on our Checklist, it shall be addressed by our Legal Consultants or complex questions by our Principal Legal Consultant. Up to this point, our services are complimentary.
After receiving from you a completed Checklist, we offer a Consultation date in order for us to appreciate your personal circumstances in more detail which allows us to tailor made our advice accordingly. We charge a fixed fee for the consultation but this fee shall be set off with our retainer cost if you appoint us to proceed; hence the consultation fee is then part of the package.
Should you decide not to proceed after the consultation, we are happy to have provided you with the legal advice to plan your estate, and perhaps when the time is right for you, we hope to be of service later on. Should you decide to proceed, which more than 99% of our clients after consultation decide to do, you shall be asked to sign our Retainer to appoint HERITANCE WILLS. You have full control over what you decide to do after the consultation.
Our team gets down to drawing up your will or wills. On your approval of the will, we shall set an appointed date and time for you to execute your will. If this execution is at our office, then we shall provide the witnesses to your will. Once signed by all parties, and depending on the relevant jurisdiction, your will is then completed.
A final task is for you to decide where your original will is to be stored. Find out more about our WILLSAFE™ storage services here
HERITANCE WILLS INTERNATIONAL was founded by Ms Kim Khoo who has practised in succession law for 28 years, with focus on and specialisation in multi-jurisdictional estates. Our company vision is to protect legacies and ensure proper succession, thereby forging family ties and taking family businesses to the next generation. Our goal is to assist our clients to craft wills and other legal instruments in line with our vision.
HERITANCE WILLS INTERNATIONAL’s charitable arm, HEART & SOUL Private Fund aims to help meet the needs of the local community suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of its corporate social responsibility.