Inside Appleton

Appleton fiduciary services Managing Director, Lauren Hean, highlights a very successful H2 2023 for the company.

We had a very busy and productive H2 2023 and wish to thank all our colleagues in the Spirit Group for their assistance and support.

We are grateful to our colleagues at Warwick Wealth for continuing to focus on high-

net-worth individuals for their Wills and trust that our back-office guidance is assisting you with providing the best possible advice to your clients. The more we assist our clients with planning for their passing, the easier the administration process is on death. We need to reduce the emotional burden on the family who are already suffering the loss of a loved one.

We are still wading through the small, legacy Wills which are becoming estates and understand the frustration in assisting with documentation for an estate that will be renounced or outsourced. We appreciate the team effort. We are almost at the end of our Will Only Client clean-up project, which has been a great success, and we appreciate all involved in this project. This is not a once off project and we look forward to the continued contact with all clients to ensure that our database remains accurate and up to date.

We are particularly looking forward to the inclusion of the Estate Summary in the Seed Statements to be reviewed with your clients when reviewing their investments annually. We have commenced the capturing of assets on Xplan and are excited about the future inclusion of estate information in the review process.

To my team, I wish to thank our head of estate administration, Vannessa Nicholas, for her professional work and support. I also wish to congratulate Aaishah Daniels on her promotion to Administrator. Aaishah assisted Nerisha Radhella, who resigned at the beginning of December 2023. Aaishah has stepped up and took the proverbial “bull by the horns”. I wish you all the best success in your new role Aaishah.

I can’t thank my entire team enough for their hard work and dedication. Professional and skilled Will drafting and efficient Estate administration is an intensive, time-consuming under- taking and I am grateful to each and every one of you for continuing to give of your best at all times.

I expect to travel around the country in Q2 of 2024 to provide some further in-depth training on the take in of estates and the importance of the initial meeting with the family of a deceased person. We cannot stress the importance of the information provided at the outset.

To end off, I will share my favourite quote from Marc Anthony, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”