Online Reporter
Miriam Tose Majome
Correspondent
This week we return to my favourite topic, which is estate planning and inheritance matters.
We work incredibly hard to build homes, buy stands, secure cars, save money and accumulate a little dignity for our families. Yet many of us barely ever pause to plan what should happen to those assets when we die.
We have a culture of paying for funerals, sometimes for decades, but very little culture of planning for the long and complicated process that comes after the funeral.
As a result, the majority of inheritance disputes in this country are not caused by the law. They are caused by poor planning, secrecy and the mistaken belief that things will sort themselves out. Unfortunately, they never do.
Families are usually torn apart but not always by greed but by confusion. People often don’t leave behind wills, instructions, list of assets, passwords or documents. In some cases, no one even knows what the deceased owned.
Zimbabwe is full of unclaimed bank accounts, insurance and pension policies, abandoned stands, houses, unregistered properties, secret life policies and investment certificates stashed in drawers no one ever opens.
The owner dies, and the family is left to piece it all together but not all assets are retrieved.
We urgently need a national culture of estate planning that goes beyond the old assumption that creating a trust or writing will alone is enough, although this is better than doing nothing. Trusts and wills are good but they are only two of many estate planning tools available.
What proper estate planning should look like
Estate planning simply means arranging your property and affairs so that when you die, your wishes are clear, lawful and easy to implement. Planning is not just for the wealthy. Anyone with children, a spouse, a house, a pension, a car, a savings account or even a burial society entitlement needs an estate plan. Proper planning has three major pillars.
Describing what you own and where it is
This sounds simple but it is the most neglected. At a minimum, a person should leave behind a list of all assets and liabilities. This includes bank accounts, cash, policies, immovable property, vehicle registration books, shares, pensions, debts owed to you and debts you owe.
Many estates collapse into chaos because people hide their assets, sometimes deliberately, sometimes just out of habit. Hidden assets die with their owner. They get forfeited, abused or swallowed by bureaucracy. A proper estate plan forces transparency and avoids surprises.
Leaving valid legal instructions
A will is the most common document, and the Wills Act governs how it must be written. Anyone above 16 and is of sound mind can write a will. Wills are flexible: they can allocate guardianship of children, outline burial wishes, direct the sale or retention of property or distribute sentimental items.
Due to widespread awareness campaigns by mostly lawyers in churches, the media, and other platforms, many people now know about trusts and to many setting up a trust to donate the family house into is the ultimate estate-planning solution.
Indeed, trusts are useful and have their benefits but they are not the magic pill to estate planning as many believe. A trust must be properly established, properly funded, and properly administered.
A trust without assets is just a piece of paper. A trust without proper trustees is a headache. And a trust created solely to bypass family disputes will fail if the family was never part of the planning conversation.
Besides wills and trusts, people can also use:
- Life policies with nominated beneficiaries
- Pension beneficiary nomination forms
- Family agreements
- Co-ownership agreements
- Buy-and-sell agreements for family businesses
- Managed bank accounts and survivorship arrangements
- Proper registration of spouses under marriage laws.
Together, these instruments create a stronger and more coherent plan. Relying on one document alone is rarely enough.
Ensuring your estate can be administered efficiently
Estate planning should also consider who will manage your affairs.
Executors play a central role in distributing property and paying debts. Problems often start here because families cannot agree on who should take charge.
The Administration of Deceased Estates Act obliges the Master’s Office to settle disputes and draw up inheritance plans in customary law estates.
But the Master can only work with what is presented. If documentation is missing, or assets are unknown, the Master cannot perform miracles.
Poor estate planning also leads to unnecessary delays. Sometimes an estate is held up for years because property was never registered properly or the deceased passed away without updating documents after remarriages, divorces or births of children. These are avoidable problems.
Consequences of not planning
The absence of estate planning creates a heavy burden on families who are already grieving. Fights become personal, long buried grievances rise to the surface, and the executor is accused of every imaginable wrongdoing.
Estates end up in court, which drains resources that could have benefited survivors. Children suffer the most when adults fail to plan.
What makes this sad is that most of these disputes could be avoided through simple, deliberate preparation. Listing your assets, keeping documents accessible, writing a will, updating your information regularly, choosing reliable executors, having honest conversations with spouses and children. None of these things cost much, but failing to do them costs everything.
We need a shift in mindset. Funeral policies are not estate planning. A trust is not estate planning, and a will alone is not estate planning. True estate planning is a combination of approaches, openness, organisation and the intelligent use of available legal and financial tools.
Miriam Tose Majome is a lawyer and can be contacted on [email protected]
