Australia has a large immigrant population, so it isn't
surprising that many of us hold assets overseas as well as in
Australia. If you do have assets in more than one country, it's
important to
ensure that your Will properly disposes of your worldwide
assets - not just those in Australia. One available option is
to make a single Will disposing of all of your assets - an
'International Will'. Alternatively, you can make a
separate Will for each country in which you hold assets. Below, we
discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of these two
options.
One single Will to dispose of all of your assets:
Making one Will that disposes of all of your assets worldwide is
certainly a simpler and cheaper way of disposing of your assets, at
least as opposed to preparing a Will in a number of different
countries. However, there are several issues with this approach.
Each country has its own formal requirements that must be met in
order for a Will to be deemed valid.
