Navigating legal matters can be complex, but we’re here to make it easier.
Find answers to the most frequently asked questions we receive about our legal services and insights into common legal issues, including employment law, estate planning, and intellectual property.
If you can’t find the information you’re looking for, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team directly. We’re always happy to help!
We can assist with a variety of legal issues, but we specialise in the following services for business owners, professionals and private clients:
Corporate & Commercial Law
Estate Planning
Succession Planning
Intellectual Property & Trademarking
Property Law
Trusts and Self-Managed Super Funds
Disputes
Click here to find out more about how we can help.
Our accounting and wealth teams work closely with our legal team in areas such as succession planning, estate planning, establishing or selling your business, trusts, and self-managed super funds to ensure our clients get the best outcome possible and their business and personal goals are met.
Not at all!
While we do offer integrated professional services across accounting, legal, finance, and wealth, we understand that our other services may not fit your needs.
We are more than happy to work with your existing professional advisors to make sure you get the best outcomes, no matter which business unit of Aintree Group you choose to engage for advice.
If you want to learn more about our integrated professional services in future, click here.
Following the closure of AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers, Aintree Group Legal has taken custody of most of their clients’ deeds, wills and titles.
The team at Aintree Group Legal are very happy to continue as permanent custodians of AMS clients’ documents, and we welcome the opportunity to be your new legal representative for these matters and provide any other assistance you may require going forward.
Please be assured that your documents will be held securely with us for as long as needed until you have nominated a permanent custodian, regardless of whether you choose to stay with Aintree Group Legal or not.
The decision to provide support to clients of AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers has been made in line with our values of being courageous custodians of our community. We take this responsibility seriously, and will work hard to ensure that these clients feel safe and cared for during this process.
If you have any questions about this process, please check out our AMS Client Enquiry page or contact us on 03 9851 7929.
You must review your Will every 3-5 years, even if you feel like nothing has changed.
In addition to regular reviews, it is essential that you review your Will and Estate Plan immediately after any major life events, such as:
Purchasing or selling property, business or other significant assets;
Marriage or a new de facto relationship;
Birth of a child, new grandchildren, godchildren or other dependents;
Divorce or relationship breakdown;
A significant change in financial circumstances.
Please get in touch with our team as soon as possible if your Will or Estate Plan needs to be reviewed.
Estate Planning involves preparing for what you want to happen to your assets and affairs when you pass away. It is also about having a back-up plan for who takes charge of your affairs if you lose capacity and can’t make sound decisions.
Everyone has an Estate Plan in place – it might just not be the one you want! In other words, no Estate Plan = still an Estate Plan.
And it is MORE than just a Will (even though this is a very important component). It also involves who is going to make decisions for you if you lose capacity (your powers of attorney), your superannuation (binding death nominations) and, succession arrangements and planning of your trust structures and companies.
If you don’t have a properly set up Estate Plan, something will still happen to your assets and someone will still be appointed to make decisions for your estate (if you were to pass away), but it will be automatically assigned to the default mechanisms in place. These can include intestacy provisions (laws that come into play with an invalid Will) and your trust deed terms (if you have these structures). More often than not it won’t achieve the outcome you want as your specific wishes won’t be fulfilled.
Instead, you can be well prepared ahead of time so that your affairs will be sorted with ease when you pass away and there will be less strain on your family and friends at this difficult time.
Please make sure you consult a lawyer to have your Will drawn up professionally – we do not recommend using DIY Will Kits. Wills are a complex legal document, and deviating even slightly can mean your wishes are not legally binding. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach of a Will Kit especially doesn’t suit people with complex financial situations, business and superannuation structures and intricate family dynamics.
All businesses should be regularly reviewing their standard form contracts (including terms and conditions, employment contracts, annual service agreements) , and it is particularly important at the moment as the laws have recently changed.
All businesses that use standard form contracts (terms and conditions that are used repeatedly) are urged to get them checked to see if they have any unfair terms in them.
If businesses fail to comply, harsh penalties can apply which can greatly affect small businesses in particular.
Want to review your contracts? Contact our Aintree Group Legal team today!
You can protect your business’s Intellectual Property by registering a trademark for aspects of your business such as your name, logo or slogan.
A Trademark gives you exclusive rights to use, sell or license whatever you have protected, so no one else in Australia can access or use it. It’s always advised to get trademarks and protections in place very early in your business journey, to ensure you’re protected further down the line – you never know what something will grow into and you don’t want other people to profit off your hard work and brilliant ideas!
Once you have checked your eligibility and done your research, you can start the process of applying for a trademark.
If you don’t want to manage this process by yourself, we can help! Our team at Aintree Group Legal are experts in Intellectual Property and Trademarking and offer a free trademark consultation for those wanting to apply.
For more information we recommend reading this article: Trademarking and Intellectual Property 101 – Aintree Group
A family trust is a legal arrangement that allows you, as the trustee, to hold assets for the benefit of your children and/or dependents, who are the beneficiaries.
The primary purpose of a family trust is to manage, protect, and distribute family assets according to your goals and preferences, ensuring your wealth is passed on in a structured, controlled manner.
The main purposes and benefits of a family trust include asset protection, tax planning opportunities, estate planning, control and management of assets, privacy and family support.
You should always consult with your legal advisor and tax agent to see if it is the best option for you.
One of our core values at Aintree Group is custodianship, and it’s part of our job to make sure you have all your ducks in a row. Our Legal Health Check is designed to conduct a thorough audit of your legal affairs, highlight any potential risks or opportunities, and create a strategy that ensures you’ve got the legal protection you need.
The service is entirely customised to you, based on your own family, business and financial circumstances.
To conduct a health check with us, complete the webform here. If you have any questions about this process, please email legal@aintreegroup.com.au.
The Right to Disconnect Laws give employees the right to refuse to monitor or respond to contact from their employers outside their normal working hours. This also includes contact from co-workers, suppliers and clients of their employer.
But an employee will not be allowed to disconnect when it is unreasonable to do so.
There are a number of practical steps employers can take now in readiness for these changes.
They should review employment contracts and work policies to see what provisions, if any, are in place concerning after-hours contact.
Employers should also review position descriptions for their staff. Often, these documents are outdated and do not reflect actual practice within a business. If contact outside normal hours is to be expected, then position descriptions should be updated to reflect this. This may also include a remuneration review for the position.
Learn more here.