Drafting Trusts & Will Trusts in Australia

Drafting Trusts & Will Trusts in Australia

By James Kessler QC, Michael Flynn

Book

$185.96 RRP

Date: 24/06/2008

Code: 9780455225494

Lawbook Co., AUSTRALIA

Available Formats

Format Title Date Code Price
Book Drafting Trusts & Will Trusts in Australia 24/06/2008 9780455225494 $185.96

Description

Based on a highly acclaimed UK title, Drafting Trusts and Will Trusts in Australia has been comprehensively adapted to provide authoritative guidance on drafting trusts and will trusts in eight Australian jurisdictions.

Providing both a comprehensive range of precedents and a wealth of valuable advice, Drafting Trusts and Will Trusts in Australia cuts through verbosity and helps you to understand and prepare trust documents your client wants and needs. The book features chapters on key areas of trust law, including beneficiaries, trustees, trustee’s powers and general provisions of a trust. Drafting Trusts and Will Trusts in Australia also offers a large number of precedents for both lifetime and will trusts. The precedents, which appear in printed form and on an accompanying CD-Rom, reveal a fresh approach to creating documents.

A unique addition to the Australian market, Drafting Trusts and Will Trusts in Australia is an essential reference for those practising in tax law, estate and succession planning, family law and property law.

This book is also available in hardcover: http://www.thomsonreuters.com.au/catalogue/shopexd.asp?id=8817

Editorial Reviews

From: The Law Institute Journal, October 2008
Reviewed by Allan Swan, Moores Legal

Too often, publications covering the drafting of non-superannuation deed and will trusts have not reflected the general preference for trustee discretion, the reality of tax laws, asset protection considerations, prudent person rule exclusions and the Australian quirk of eight all too often variant state and territory jurisdictions.
 
Kessler and Flynn’s new offering bridges the gap between affording judicial and legislative context to drafting considerations and providing practical assistance to lawyers drafting the more commonly established Australian discretionary, fixed and capital reserved trusts. The book is based on James Kessler’s informative and very readable English text; although its use of gender-specific language is surprising in a 21st century publication. The English text has been successfully melded with Michael Flynn’s considerable Australian trusts and tax expertise to give Australian practitioners a new well for drafting inspiration. The extensive referencing to Australian legislation impacting on the drafting of trusts is but one example of the thought that has been put
into ensuring that this is a book of relevance to Australian practitioners.
 
The coverage of non-unitised discretionary and capital reserved trusts such as life interests is a hallmark of the book, as is the coverage of many state and territory oddities impacting on drafting such as state duty and the various Settled Land Acts. An electronic copy of precedent document templates is included with the book.
 
Like most first editions, the book has shortcomings that hopefully will be addressed in later editions. The desirability of excluding close relatives who are means tested pensioners from benefit or control of discretionary trusts needs emphasis. Drafting to anticipate the pitfalls of second generation discretionary trusts jointly controlled by siblings, as well as to anticipate possible future cloning or splitting trusts, needs to be covered. Discretionary trusts with unitised control provisions (i.e. hybrid voting trusts) are overlooked. On the wills front, the importance of adjustment clauses in wills to take into account non-estate assets and the impact of state and territory land tax principal residence exemptions (rather than just the CGT exemption) need to be addressed.
 
Probably of greatest concern is the coverage of protective trusts, notably the failure to address conflict of interest issues in recommending discretionary trusts for those “disabled” beneficiaries who are vulnerable to exploitation, e.g. by their own siblings. 
 
The shortcomings are limited, however, and the breadth of useful information means that this book deserves to be an addition to legal practitioner bookshelves and electronic libraries.

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