Message from The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP)
We want to hear from you.
Recently it has come to our attention that attorneys are encountering difficulties when endeavouring to properly undertake transactions on their principal’s bank accounts. Those difficulties have included the bank requiring the incapacitated adult to attend the branch and confirm that they authorise the attorney to make such transactions or the bank requiring multiple attorneys (when appointed jointly) to attend at the same branch, despite the attorneys living in different parts of the country.
These difficulties impact the ability of our members to properly advise their clients in relation to planning for those assets across generations.
If you have an example where you or your clients have encountered difficulties with a banking institution when endeavouring to undertake transactions as the account holder’s attorney and are willing to share it, we would appreciate you providing those client examples to us.
Click here – to provide your or your client example/s
STEP Australia is engaging with various stakeholders, including the Law Council of Australia, in this regard and intends to convene a roundtable to address the issue and, hopefully, find sensible solutions that will work for all involved.
It is the general consensus that it will be important to provide real stories of these difficulties to the stakeholders to ensure that the depth of the issue is properly understood.