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WHAT IS YOUR ’ESTATE’?
MONEY BASICS
with MARTIN HESSE
THE word “estate” abounds in literature about personal finance and law, and yet I am sure many people don’t fully understand what the word means. Not only is it a clinical legal term; it is too easily confused with the other meaning of the word, which refers to residential or commercial property, as in “wine estate” or “estate agent”. I love the Afrikaans word for estate: “boedel”. To me that is far more down-to-earth and somehow descriptive. Everyone has an estate, even
the homeless man in a makeshift tent underneath the bridge. It’s just the size and complexity that differs. Essentially, your estate is what you own, all bundled together in a “boedel”. It’s your car, house, Pierneef painting, Persian rug, stamp collection, Krugerrands, computer, cellphone … the list can go on and on, depending on how much stuff you have accumulated. These are, to use another financial term, your “assets”. Assets also include non-physical
things such as shares in a company, cryptocurrency, savings and investments. An assessment of your estate cannot be complete without also taking into account what you owe – what the financial and legal folk refer to as your “liabilities”. In other words, your debts, including what you owe on your mortgage bond, vehicle finance and credit agreements. To determine your “net worth” you need to calculate the value of all your belongings (their market value, or what you could
