What’s happened to my shares and it’s value if I suddenly die

Hi Ngoc :)

Congratulations on beginning your investing, and welcome to the club!

Your shares are now an asset you own, just like a property or cash. If you were to pass away, it will form part of your estate and your assets will go to whoever you’ve nominated them to go to in your will (likely your kids).

If you don’t have a will, I recommend getting one done for peace of mind (Red Cross can refer you to a solicitor for a low cost solution, in exchange they hope you leave them something) – https://www.redcross.org.au/donate-funds/bequ...

Hope that helps, and again well done for getting started!
Dave

Hey Ngoc,

Great question, and always a little scary building assets as a sole provider thinking about worst case scenarios.

Agree with the comment from Dave here, if you were to pass away all of your assets would generally move to your estate and be distributed according to your will. The value of your assets is all protected and safe, so at least this part isn’t something you need to stress about.

If you don’t have a will, most likely these would still be passed to your kids, but the administration is a nightmare which when coupled with unexpected death is not what you want to happen, so setting up a will asap is a good idea.

Practically it’s also probably a good idea to have a list of your assets and accounts somewhere (very) safe that could be passed on to whoever would help with administration in the event of your passing.

Hope it helps.

Ben

Hi Ngoc,

Absolutely second what Dave said.

Having a will in place will make this already difficult time a lot less stressful for whoever is in charge of sorting out your assets.

Our broker will normally need to see documentation such as death certificate, will, Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration to allow access to your holdings to either make any sales or transfers to another person.

Hope this provides some insight and thanks for your question!