ACT Superannuation beneficiary

[Chill27]

hello

I have a bit of a family situation going on. So basically this is the background:

My husband was the beneficiary for his uncles super. His uncle had no will and passed away three years ago. As the beneficiary, NSW courts (his uncle lived in NSW) awarded my husband all the super as per his wishes. At the time, my husband wanted to give a portion of the money as a gift to his little brother and his cousin. He said the gift will go straight into a home loan when they bought a house (so that they couldn’t spend the money on cars, partying etc as they are both in their early 20’s). This was to give them an incentive to save up a deposit and buy a house. My husband didn’t want the money to be wasted and wanted to gift it to them in their loans to help pay it off a bit quicker. My husband said to both of them that it will be locked into a term deposit under his name until that time. This was not an agreement, it was verbally discussed (maybe also text message) that this is what he was thinking. There has been a recent breakdown in the family and now my husband and his cousin no longer speak. His cousin has now contacted my husband demanding his “share” of the money because of the “agreement”. My husband said he wouldn’t give him the money as it’s not going towards a house and his cousin responded (by text) saying he doesn’t need the money anymore, and that he can keep it. Now he has called again demanding his share and wanting to know why he won’t give it to him.

What are my husbands rights? I’m worried his cousin will try to take this to court, even though technically this isn’t his money. My husband wanted to give it to him as a gift out of good will. His cousin isn’t even in a position to buy a house yet, and wants to use that money on something else. Can my husband refuse to give him the money at all now?

Any advice on our rights and how we can prepare if he was to take it further would be great.

Thanks.

 

[Smiley]

In terms of superannuation:

I assume that your husband has already received the benefit from the superannuation fund. This appears to be the case given your comment about your husband re distributing the superannuation benefit. Unless your husbands cousin can demonstrate he or she is a person to whom the superannuation benefit can be paid to, and was not appropriately claim staked by the superannuation fund, the cousin in question would not appear to be a person to whom the benefit can be paid to and would have no real grounds of appeal to the superannuation fund of Superannuation Complaints Tribunal.

This leaves the cousin with what appears to be a family dispute. A case of you said you were going to do X but you did not do it. Unless your cousin has some agreement or suffered a provable financial detriment as a result of what was discussed, I would say there is slim chance of the cousin receiving anything unless your husband volunteers it.

Therefore it is not so much a case of what your husbands rights are, but on what basis the cousin is entitled to X?

Best of luck.




It does not appear that your husbands cousin is a person to whom there superannuation benefit

 

[Smiley]

I assume that your husband has already received the benefit from the superannuation fund. This appears to be the case given your comment about your husband re distributing the superannuation benefit. Unless your husband's cousin can demonstrate he or she is a person to whom the superannuation benefit can be paid to, and was not appropriately claim staked by the superannuation fund, the cousin in question would not appear to be a person to whom the benefit can be paid to and would have no real grounds of appeal to the superannuation fund or the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal.


This leaves the cousin with what appears to be a family dispute. A case of you said you were going to do X but you did not do it. Unless the cousin has some agreement or suffered a provable financial detriment as a result of what was discussed, I would say there is slim chance of the cousin receiving anything unless your husband volunteers it.


Therefore it is not so much a case of what your husband's rights are, but on what basis the cousin is entitled to X?


Best of luck.

 

[Chill27]

Thanks so much for your response.

I didn’t think he had much of a case against us. We also sought legal advice just incase and they provided a similar response to yours.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply, it is much appreciated.