Helen (68) and Ian (69) have been clients of FFA for nearly 30 years.  Sadly, Ian was diagnosed with a terminal illness three years ago which, at the time, devastated his entire family.

Ian had always had a keen interest in their finances and set up an SMSF many years ago so that he and Helen could one day enjoy their retirement as a reward for all their years of hard work.  This worked well for Helen as she left all of this to Ian as, by her own admission, could never fully understand what was happening despite Ian trying to explain this to her many times.

They were both individual trustees of the SMSF, which had two commercial properties, a considerable share portfolio, and cash investments.

After receiving his diagnosis, Ian started getting very anxious about leaving Helen to deal with their SMSF post his death, as he knew this was something that she couldn’t deal with.

Helen agreed with this, but it wasn’t top of her mind for her at that stage, as she was struggling to come to terms with the thought of Ian not being around.

Their key objective was to decide on how to best deal with their SMSF in preparing for the inevitable for Ian.

Soon after the diagnosis, we formed a working group with Ian, Helen and their accountant and met on a quarterly basis.  We all agreed that the end goal was to wind up their SMSF and transition Helen to a much simpler arrangement.

Furthermore, Ian no longer wanted to take part in the management of their investment strategy as he didn’t feel like he was in the right headspace.

Our first step was to work closely with their accountant to take care of their trustee arrangements in planning for the worst by incorporating a corporate trustee instead of individual trustee.

Over a period of 18 months, both properties were sold and all their shares were liquidated before transitioning them both to superannuation pensions.

From here, we set up a fortnightly pension which is now used to fund their living expenses.

Despite being across the technicalties of an SMSF, Ian was also surprised about the number of complex steps that were needed throughout the transition.

Both Helen and Ian were extremely grateful for the role FFA took in coordinating this change as it took a huge amount of pressure off, giving them the space they needed to go through the grieving process.

Whilst they are still struggling to come to terms with the situation overall, Ian is in a much better place now and knows that Helen will never be left alone to deal with her finances when he passes.