Estate planning

Helping individuals to plan their legacy for their loved ones is the focus of estate planning. Richard Seow Yeaw Chong, Senior Manager of Marketing & Training at Rockwills Corporation Sdn Bhd, provides insight into this area of legal practice.

In legal terms, an estate is the collection of assets and liabilities left by a person after his or her death. Estate planning is the arrangement for the management and disposal of a person's estate after death, through wills, trusts or other legal instruments.

The work

Legal professionals in this area of work would perform the following tasks, often working with non-legally trained estate planning colleagues:

• will drafting and vetting
• drafting of trust deeds
• handling estate administration work
• handling trust administration work
• dealing with local authorities on various matters
• meeting clients
• answering legal enquiries.

As estate planning is a relatively new field in Malaysia, legal professionals in an estate planning organisation may be called upon to train and instruct professional estate planners without legal qualifications, and conduct talks and seminars to educate the general public on estate planning.

Legal professionals working in estate planning are responsible for preparing legally binding and effective documents for clients for the purpose of estate preservation and protection, estate creation and estate distribution.

Estate preservation and protection

In order for a person to ensure that his or her estate can reach his or her heirs, he or she needs to do sufficient planning to preserve it. For example, if an estate is highly in debt and there is no proper planning done to settle the debts, the estate value may shrink by 20% to 70%, thus causing the beneficiaries to receive only a fraction of the estate..In order to best serve the client's interests, estate planners have to be well versed with the potential threats, both financial (taxes, loans, etc) and non-financial (family members' contest), to the estate.

Estate creation

In some cases, professional estate planners will also be required to look into assisting clients to create funding vehicles that meet the clients' 'financial ambitions' or financial goals. Clients can use various types of assets as funding vehicles, including bank savings, unit trust investments, shares, EPF, insurance policies and others.

Estate Distribution

This is the final and most important part of estate planning. At the end of a person's life, the balance of assets he or she leaves behind needs to be passed on to the intended beneficiaries, be it family members or charitable organisations. A will and/or trust deed is commonly used to achieve this purpose.

Types of law practised

Law of succession, family law, land law, company law, law of trust, insurance law, bankruptcy law, law of taxation and stamp duty, and law on probate and administration.

Qualifications required

The estate planning field offers opportunities for graduates with legal training and those from other disciplines, and may prove attractive for those who want to work in a environment related to law, but outside legal firms.

For all job areas, a good learning attitude and commitment are necessary for success in this industry, together with a strong passion for the work involved and to help people to take care of their loved ones.

About the author

Richard Seow Yeaw Chong graduated with an LLB from the University of London in 2002. He joined Rockwills in 2003 and has worked his way from executive to his current position as Senior Manager, Marketing & Training. He has trained a few thousand professional estate planners, professional will writers, insurance agents, unit trust consultants, legal professionals, accountants, bankers, tax consultants and financial planners in Malaysia and Hong Kong. He also regularly contributes articles to magazines and newspapers to educate the general public on the importance of estate planning.

© GTI Specialist Publishers. Reproduced with permission.