Professional Background
Karen is a senior paralegal.
After gaining extensive experience in Commercial Litigation and Family Law, she was attracted to all aspects of Estate Planning and Management. She was involved in a significant number of disputed estates which gave her great insight into the issues involved with Probate and Administration matters leading her to take on the full-time role as paralegal with the responsibility for all probate and administration applications and working closely with the clients in preparation of Wills, Powers of Attorney and other related documents.
Karen is a Justice of the Peace registered in New South Wales.
Current Practice
Her recent work has included:
- Two estates where the first nominated executor, the wife of the deceased, died outside the 30 day period resulting in the need for a Probate Application and an Application for Letters of Administration with the Will Annexed to be brought by the children, one of whom was a foreign resident.
- Acting for an estate of a deceased doctor who was a divorced person with no natural children, but step-children from an earlier marriage, with those step-children never having had a financial dependency on the deceased and the threat of a claim against the estate raised.
- Acting for an estate with assets exceeding $10million that were held jointly where there was no requirement for a Grant of Probate but a seamless transfer of assets to the surviving widow. A change to the structure of a family company was also required.
- Obtaining a Grant of Letters of Administration for children of a deceased where no Will was left.
- Acting for an estate where the deceased was executor of an estate not fully administered, requiring an application to the Court to enable the newly deceased’s executor to complete the administration of the earlier estate.
- Arranging for renunciation of the role of executor where the executor nominated in the Will was unwilling to act.
- Acting in many straight forward matters involving speedy Applications for Probate and transfer of assets to the surviving spouse or children.
