For Private Banks, Trust Companies and Family Offices

Many families looked after by private banks, trust companies and family offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Hong Kong have an Australian piece: property, a company, a trust, or family members living here. This page collects our notes written for you, the adviser, on the Australian legal issues those families meet most often.

We act for clients referred by advisers on estates with Australian assets, trusts and holding structures, relocation and succession, and family disputes. We work alongside the client’s overseas lawyers, accountants and trustees, and keep you informed at agreed points with the client’s authority.

Your clients’ Australian issues

• Australian counsel for your clients: how referrals, confidentiality and coordination work
• When a client dies holding Australian assets
• Offshore trusts with Australian assets or beneficiaries: issues for trustees
• Before your client moves to Australia: a pre-immigration checklist
• Ageing clients: capacity, powers of attorney and frozen accounts
• When the next generation separates in Australia: protecting family wealth

Notes for other advisers

• The Australian component of a client’s affairs: a note for private bankers
• Governance in family offices
• From assets under management to assets under trust: for financial planners
• When a client dies: a note for accountants
• Superannuation nominations, insurance and estate planning: for financial advisers
• Deceased shareholders and family company disputes: for company secretaries

Estates, trusts and tax across borders

• Coordinating a global estate
• Control of family trusts after death
• Offshore trusts with Australian assets or beneficiaries (for families)
• Foreign trusts and offshore companies: how Australia taxes its residents
• Testamentary capacity and elderly will-makers
• Holding Australian property: personal name, company or family trust

For families who need an independent executor, administrator or trustee in Australia, see our professional executor and trustee services. Overseas lawyers can also read our note for overseas lawyers.

About us

Justin Chua is a lawyer and mediator at Chua Tan Associates, a Melbourne firm that has practised since 1990. He is a Nationally Accredited Mediator, an Accredited Family Business Advisor and an Affiliate member of STEP, and mediates in English and Mandarin. The firm also advises in Cantonese and has two Accredited Specialists in Immigration Law.

Refer a matter. You are welcome to describe a matter in general terms first, without names. Call +61 3 9602 3988, email chuatan@tpg.com.au, or use the enquiry form below.

General information only, not legal advice.