One man’s experience and why
Where There Is A Will is important ...

“On Saturday, 31st March 2007, I received a phone call that my brother Steve had
fallen the night before and sustained a severe head injury. He was in a critical condition
and was being flown by Air Ambulance from Coffs Harbour to Sydney.

I called my family and then set off on the long drive from Lakes Entrance in Victoria to
Sydney to be with him.

Steve lived in Coffs Harbour and was 40 years old. He was separated from his wife and had three young children aged 10, four and three. He owned a small aquarium and gold fish business and was the only employee. In his spare time he loved to game fish offshore from Coffs and spend time with his kids. He was enjoying life and things were looking good.

“I spent two days searching, including contacting
 every solicitor in Coffs Harbour ...”

When our family arrived at his intensive care bedside at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, we prayed he would come through. Sadly, on Tuesday, 3rd April 2007, we were told that he had sustained an irreparable brain injury and the only option was to turn off the life support. Steve passed away about an hour later.

In the days following, it became my role to make the funeral arrangements and to begin sorting out his business and personal affairs. Because the fall was considered suspicious, the police were investigating and had locked up the shed where Steve lived and from where he ran his business. Nobody could enter the shed unless they could show they were the “Executor to the Will” or had a “Letter of Administration”, which would take eight weeks to process. We were not sure if Steve even had a Will.

I spent two days searching, including contacting every solicitor in Coffs Harbour and the last couple of towns where Steve had lived. It was a very difficult time for the family, made worse by not being able to get access to his personal effects, locked in the shed.

Every day the business was closed meant there was no income, but debts still accrued. Inside the locked shed were large tanks containing hundreds of gold fish, but nothing could be done because the police would not allow entry.

Steve’s Will may have been in the shed with his personal effects but we were helpless to do anything. At this very traumatic time for his parents and his two brothers we needed to sort things out and start to finalise his affairs.

I asked the authorities and the solicitor whether there was a website that could tell me whether he had a Will and if so, where it might be. They were not aware of anything.

Late on the second day of searching I asked my father who his solicitor was when Steve was about 20. Dad contacted the solicitor and found that Steve had in fact made a Will when he was young. With a copy of that document, which had me listed as executor, we could start to sort out Steve’s affairs.

I told this story to a good friend of mine and he suggested we build a website: one that could be used by individuals and solicitors to avoid such a situation.

If there had been a website like this, and the Will and its location had been registered, it would have saved a lot of pain and heartache at an already difficult time.

Nobody expects to lose a family member suddenly as we did, but should it happen,
Where There Is A Will may help at a very difficult time.”

“If there had been a website like this, and the
 Will and its location had been registered ...”

– Michael Smits, co-founder of Where There Is A Will