News and views

If you have a family trust set up a number of years ago, it’s good practice to review it to ensure it is still ‘fit for purpose’. Leading on from that is the question that is often asked of us, “Should I bring my trust to an end?”

Julia Hunt, our trainee Legal Executive, has just received her results for her final New Zealand Diploma in Legal Executive Studies exams - straight A-plusses, no less.

Somebody pinch me. Seriously, November … already? Sure enough, we’re careering headlong into that time of to-do lists rivalling Santa’s and accelerators pressed hard to the floor at work and home.

While most people are aware they need a Will, and might have given clear directions as to how they wish their business duties to be dealt with after they pass, many don’t give a second thought to how their business would fare if they were suddenly mentally incapacitated.

Our ability to access the ‘great outdoors’ in New Zealand is seen as something of a citizen’s right. At times, however, It does conflict with the rights of private landowners when, in order to access the great outdoors, there is a need to cross their private land first.

We like to think of it as the “season of goodwill”. For many families, though, the holiday season can be extremely testing and feel anything but merry following a separation.

Most laws tend to have initial bedding-in challenges. In the case of the new foreign buyer legislation, it’s the failure by would-be buyers to complete a crucial new form – an oversight so significant, it’s already derailing sales and causing financial grief.