At a glance
In this edition, we focus on marriage, marital property regimes and its impact on financial planning.
We often find that clients are not aware of the practical impact their marriage regimes have on their personal financial plans and the unintended consequences it can have when implementing business continuity protection solutions.
We start at the beginning: Tebatso Moloko provides us with a very concise summary of the marriage regimes we have in South Africa, as well as the other types of unions you may come across when consulting with your clients. Roné Heymans then continues this discussion in our personal section, focusing on the impact marriages in Community of Property and with accrual will have on an estate plan. She specifically focuses on the impact it will have on a client’s freedom of testation and the calculation of the value of the estate.
Emile Hofmeyr highlights the importance of being aware of a client’s marital regime when clients enter into a buy-and-sell agreement, once again focusing on the impact a marriage in Community of Property can have on the successful implementation of the buy-and-sell transaction.
The take home message is that a proper financial plan is not possible if you do not know how a client is married. It is vital to ask the question and to avoid making assumptions as it can result in planning errors that may have financial implications for the parties involved, and it can result in a complaint against the financial adviser, which could have been avoided with a simple question.
I trust you will find the content useful.
Please note that any information in our posts, documents, infographics, emails etc is general information and should not be considered as providing financial advice. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such information by any reader, client or visitor to our website. Though we make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information provided we accept no liability for any inaccuracies.