PONSONBY PROFESSIONALS

We hope you’re able to take some time for rest and relaxation this summer.

After the year we’ve all had, it’s important to recalibrate, reconnect, and create a positive mind-set for 2021. Enjoy your time with family, friends, the summer sun, and copious amounts of pavlova.

Why knowing your staff ‘learning styles’ is good for business Ever handed out a business document for your team only to find half of them abandoned at the table, or discovered a staff member nodding off during a graphic, chart-filled presentation? It could be because the communication style you’re using isn’t resonating so they’re unintentionally switching off.

Everyone learns differently, and while we’ve known this for centuries, the VARK modalities, developed by New Zealander Neil Fleming in 1987, were the first to offer a quiz with help sheets so people could use it to learn and teach better. VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/ Write, and Kinesthetic. The idea is that we use one (or a mixture) of these modalities when learning information. Kinesthetic: Learn by doing Demonstrations, simulations, videos, and movies of ‘real’ things, as well as case studies, practice, and applications. If it can be grasped, held, tasted, or felt, it will resonate!

Why is it important to be aware of your own, and your teams, learning Business health check styles? Knowing how each of your staff members best learn can • Holiday pay sorted? Working out what an employee gets paid for enhance their communication skills, improve performance, better taking a day off on annual holidays will depend partly on what your new-hire processes, reduce conflict, and increase the range of they have earned in the previous 12 months. Find out more at communication strategies used in your business. www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/ or in New Zealand Workforce Manager Whether it’s rules, guidelines, job changes, systems, and processes, or change within the business, it’s your job to ensure staff learn in the • Boxing Day and 2 January fall on a Saturday this year. So, if you best way for them. Once you know how each of your staff learns (there have an employee who wouldn’t normally work on Saturday, their is a range of online quizzes), assess your communication channels, holiday entitlement is transferred to the following Monday. If your and adapt them to ensure no one misses out on valuable information. employee would normally work on Saturday, then they’ll get their holiday entitlements on Saturday (the calendar date of the New ways to communicate with staff public holiday). If you’re assembling a wooden kitset table, would you prefer to watch a video demonstration, read instructions or diagrams, or talk to • The Trusts Act, which aims to update trust law and make it someone who’d done it before? How you best learn could influence accessible to all (not just lawyers), comes into force on 30 January the way you’re delivering information to your staff. To make sure 2021. If we haven’t already spoken about how this affects your you cover all your teams’ learning needs, pick a selection of these family trust, please get in touch. communication approaches: • Take a look at your cashflow forecast and tax obligations over Visual: Learn by seeing December-January, especially if you are impacted by seasonal Charts, graphs, flow charts, lesson outlines, picture aids, and symbolic revenue (such as Christmas revenue as a retailer). Both November arrows, circles, hierarchies, and other devices used instead of words. and December GST are due for payment in January as well as provisional tax. If you are concerned you may not be able to pay Aural: Learn by hearing the tax due, please let us know and let’s look at your options. Reading aloud, verbal instructions, discussions, repeating to a colleague, oral feedback, email, phone conversations, texting, From the team here at Johnston Associates, we wish you all a very discussion boards, oral presentations, classes, tutorials, and talking Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (LOGAN GRANGER)  PN with other students and teachers. Disclaimer – While all care has been taken, Johnston Associates Chartered Accountants Read/write: Learn by reading and writing Ltd and its staff accept no liability for the content of this article; always see your professional advisor before taking any action that you are unsure about. Manuals, reports, essays, assignments, powerpoint, lists, diaries, dictionaries, quotations and words, words, words… JOHNSTON ASSOCIATES, 202 Ponsonby Road, T: 09 361 6701, www.jacal.co.nz

WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ASSET?

To the question, “What is your most important asset?” the answer most often given is, “My home.”

We New Zealanders have a love affair with property, as it provides security during our lifetime - in childhood, throughout our working lives, and in retirement.

However, only two generations ago home ownership was just a dream for many New Zealanders.

In my family, both my parents’ families lived in rental accommodation, and in later life both grandmothers lived in state or council-provided housing. For my parents and their siblings home ownership was their goal, and when they retired, they had a debtfree home and were able to live off their superannuation.

Today we all expect to ultimately own our own home and hope to enjoy a retirement lifestyle at least equivalent to what we enjoyed when we were in paid employment. However, that lifestyle is likely to cost well in excess of New Zealand Superannuation ($22,000 p.a. for a single retiree and $32,000 for a couple), so the question for many retirees is where the money to cover this shortfall will come from.

The solution, not surprisingly, is your family home, which, providing it is owned by you or your family trust, can allow you to borrow money at competitive rates through a process known as ‘equity release’. Heartland Bank is the leading provider of funding to retirees using the equity in their family homes. It applies a formula whereby the homeowner can borrow to a maximum based on a percentage of the agreed value of the home calculated by subtracting 45 from the age of the youngest home occupier. For example, a couple aged 80 and 75 years owning a family home worth $1,000,000 is able to borrow up to 30% (75-45), i.e. $300,000. The current interest rate is 5.95% p.a., with interest compounding and only due for repayment when the home is ultimately sold by the last occupier.

Under Heartland Bank’s home equity release arrangement, a borrower is guaranteed lifetime occupancy of the home, and in the unlikely event that the debt is greater than the value of the home, this would be written off by Heartland and not be passed on to family members.

In the above scenario, assuming the couple require $52,000 p.a. to maintain their lifestyle, they could withdraw the shortfall of $20,000 p.a. ($52,000 less $32,000 p.a. superannuation) from the $300,000 equity in their home for up to 15 years.

Equity release may not be suitable for or be welcomed by retirees struggling to maintain their lifestyle, but it is a valuable instrument in the toolbox financial planners have to assist their clients to develop their retirement plan.

We can be contacted on T: 09 309 3680 or greg@oneplan.co.nz for assistance with this. Also, listen to our podcast ‘NZ Guide To Financial Freedom’ at www.gregmoyle.com/podcast.

ONEPLAN, T: 0800 1plan4u, www.oneplan.co.nz

0800 1PLAN4U or 09 309 3680

PENDULUM STRATEGIES - A NEW CONSULTANCY BUSINESS FOR PONSONBY

Pendulum Strategies is a public relations and communications agency that has just moved into historic Letham Cottage at 35 Jervois Road in the heart of Ponsonby.

It’s a bit of a homecoming for Pendulum Strategies Director Julien Leys, who grew up in Ponsonby and lives locally.

Julien is one of New Zealand’s most experienced communicators with 23 years’ experience working in both the private and public sectors as well as a political and legal advisor with the first MMP Government. Having led, managed and owned award winning communications consultancies, Julien is a specialist in reputation management, crisis management, media relations, and government relations.

His experience is in successfully managing issues and complex problems for clients across the transport, technology, financial services, public utility, healthcare, education, technology and building and construction sectors. He established Pendulum Strategies as a specialist communications consultancy with clients across healthcare, transport, utilities, education, energy, building and construction, banking and financial services, and technology sectors.

Julien says Pendulum Strategies is a consultancy that is underscored by its mantra, which is ‘clever thinking for a changing world’. “We are great thinkers, and we are also doers. We engage our clients as we would ourselves. Trusted advisors, respected and comfortable in any setting, be it boardroom, open plan office, farm gate, or select committee room, we deliver the power of all we have - the power of all and one. We like to talk, and we like taking care of business,” says Leys. The shift in communications, which has accelerated with the global pandemic, has seen businesses and companies wanting help from boutique specialists like Pendulum Strategies on how to reach and target key audiences in a rapidly changing market, where people consume and process information across multiple channels anywhere and anytime.

“We run fast, are agile, and nimble. Our approach is that we energise, are relentless and always on. We love helping clients communicate better to achieve their goals better and faster. We get a buzz from coming to the rescue of clients who are in trouble, in crisis or up against complex, seemingly insurmountable problems.

“We love to help our clients grow market share, awareness and recognition while also protecting their reputation, which is their most important asset, and managing any communications risk.”

Pendulum Strategies has clients across private and public organisations from charitable trusts to NGOs. It provides a free hour

consultation for new or prospective clients.  PN Bookings or queries can be made online at www.pendulumstrategies.co.nz

PENDULUM STRATEGIES, Letham Cottage, 35 Jervois Road, T: 09 358 2828, E: julien@pendulumstrategies.co.nz

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When you’re buying or selling a property in the Auckland region, our legal expertise makes for smoother transactions, right down to securing the keys on settlement day.

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169a Ponsonby Road Ponsonby, Auckland +64 9 929 0800 www.metrolaw.co.nz

photography: Connor Crawford

DAVENPORTS LAW: MANAGING A TRUST

Philip and Barbara had set their trust up when they owned their business, a small engineering firm which had been very successful.

Tammy McLeod They had three adult children and five grandchildren. The trust owned their family home, a bach in the Bay of Islands, the commercial property that the business was run from and an investment portfolio with a well regarded funds management company.

Philip and Barbara’s eldest son, James, had worked in the business since finishing university and five years ago, he had bought the business from Philip and Barbara’s trust. The trust had lent James giving a lot of his wealth to his new wife’s children during his life time

the money to buy the business. There was no interest being charged good will could also alleviate these concerns, but coupled with their

and James was slowly paying off the debt over time. Their two other children, Jonathan and Megan were in vastly different circumstances. Megan was a solo mum - her marriage having split up three years before. She worked as a primary school teacher and Barbara and Philip were often helping her out with both childcare and the odd “little extra” to help her make ends meet. Jonathan was single, a successful real estate agent, who was doing extremely well for himself in the current property market boom.

Barbara and Philip had read a bit about the changes to trust law and of course, it was often the topic of conversation when they met up with their friends. Many of their friends were considering winding up their trusts and Barbara and Philip thought maybe it was something that they should consider. They talked to their accountant who suggested that they meet with a specialist trust lawyer. He said that trust law was becoming far more specialised, and a bit like going was best. She also gave some good advice around how they could

to a cardiologist rather than your GP for chest pains so it was wise to seek advice from someone who specialised in trusts.

They got in contact with the lawyer who he had recommended and went along with their large file of trust documents and an open trusts who no longer needed them – especially as they aged and they wanted to simplify their personal affairs, but there were still very good reasons for lots of people to still have trusts. She said that even though Philip and Barbara no longer had any business risk and that kind of asset protection was no longer required, their family circumstances warranted retaining the trust. Philip and Barbara were very keen for Megan to receive additional funds in the event that they both died, and a trust was a great platform to provide that flexibility. Barbara was particularly concerned that if she died and Philip met someone else, that the assets would remain protected for the children. She had seen her own inheritance diminish significantly when her father re-married after her mother passed away. He had ended up and Barbara would not want that happening to her children. Due to the significance of their assets, the lawyer explained that continuing the trust would be a sensible idea given that concern.

Both Philip and Barbara also wished for the Bay of Islands house to stay in the family for as long as possible and a trust is the perfect vehicle for long term hold of assets. The trust would also assist with making sure that whatever they passed on to their children would be protected for their children and grandchildren, and would not become relationship property and then divisible if their relationship split. This was a real concern, especially seeing how vulnerable Megan was after the split from her husband. The lawyer explained that a really other needs, it was best to keep the trust going.

The trust was also paying school fees for the grandchildren and this offered a tangible tax benefit, as the trust gave the flexibility to be able to tax those income distributions to the grandchildren at their lower tax level.

Barbara and Philip felt hugely relieved after seeing the specialist trust lawyer. She had put them at ease by explaining the structure they had mind. The lawyer explained that there were a lot of people who had

improve on how they managed the trust and also how to make sure the trust was ready for the new changes to the law.

If you feel you could use some specialist trust advice, don’t hesitate to contact Tammy McLeod or the Trust team at Davenports Law by calling 09 883 4400 or visiting www.davenportslaw.co.nz.  PN