#my bank account hasn’t been this empty since i was a teenager

[junewild]

paid $130 to have a package overnighted & they simply did not deliver it :)

[danbensen]

August-2030

The sun is hot on my back, and my thighs burn with the effort of holding this position. My back doesn’t hurt, though. Those stretches work.

My face is full of leaves. They come in triplets, saw-edged, each the size of the space between my thumb and forefinger. Hard, unripe berries tap against my glasses. Somewhere too close, a yellow-jacket buzzes.

I put one hand down and reach with the other into the shadows, scattering leaf-hoppers. The sweat sticks to the inside of the glove as I squeeze the handles of the garden sheers. A growing resistance, then a dull snap, and a brown, prickly cane shudders behind the leaves.

The dead cane tears away from the bush like velcro, exposing a patch of soil, the wall of my parents’ house, and a small volume of empty space, dangling with raspberries.

I grab one and put it in my mouth. It tastes like the dirt and leather on my glove, ash from the recent forest fires, and decades of piled summers.

Raspberry canes take a year to grow up from the root, another to produce fruit, and then they die in the third. My job is to clear out the dead canes of last year to make room for next year’s shoots. I’m also exposing more of this year’s berries to my daughters and their cousins.

I wanted to do this in my garden, which is just old enough to have its own raspberries. They’re planted in rows away from the house, just the way my grandpa had them. And I have already done the chore of cutting out that patch’s first crop of dead canes. But my kids were firm: if we were going relive someone’s childhood today, it would be theirs.

I decide that my back is hurting after all and slowly stand.

My parents’ garden hasn’t changed much since Julia was a nine months old and pooping in the wading pool. The lilacs have grown thicker, the apple tree has died. The bird bath is now at our summer house three valleys south of here. Julia manipulated my parents into giving it to her.

But there’s still the enormous rhubarb plant next to the compost. To the east, beyond the rhubarb, the hill slopes down to the Interstate, the web of aerial traffic, and the houses, condos, restaurants, business incubators, network hubs, and micro-factories of Lolo, Montana.

Julia and Mikhaela move through the garden like a hummingbird and a lawnmower, respectively, with the other teenagers strung between them. Some are talking or doing incomprehensible things with their key-rings and charm-bracelets, but an impressive amount of berry-picking is still getting done. Mikhaela said she wanted to make a pie for the party, and they already have enough for two.

I glance to my right, where my younger daughter is methodically mowing her way down the raspberries. I can’t tell whether she’s listening to an audiobook or sharing her POV with some other kid in Saudi Arabia or just thinking her thoughts.

I remember my grandpa when he drove me home from the airport one summer. I had wanted to read a fantasy book, but he wouldn’t let me. He kept me talking that whole drive.

“What did you learn in drama camp today?” I ask her.

“Diegesis,” she says.

There’s a conversation starter! But my attempt at a follow-up question is interrupted by a delivery drone descending onto our lawn. Its brown plastic carapace is emblazoned with the logo of the nearest hub, which means only that this isn’t a delivery from a Lolo caterer or micro-factory. The kids could have ordered something from Seattle or New Zealand, and it would still get routed through the local hub. My guess, though, is that it comes from Sofia, Bulgaria.

“What did you forget to pack, Yooli?” I shout at my older daughter, Julia, as she runs toward the drone, waving her wallet-key.

Last summer, Julia packed almost nothing for our trip to the US. She told us she thought it would be easier to just mail herself stuff when she remembered she needed it. When we saw the international shipping bill, we got her her own bank account and wallet-key, which might have been the whole point of the exercise.

The drone sees her key, releases the box it was clutching, and zips back into the smoky air to join the sky-traffic.

“I didn’t forget anything.” Julia shakes her hair out of her face and lets go of her key-ring, which zips back to her belt on its recoil line. The belt is bright pink, with green and blue Kazakh embroidery patterns. Each key on the ring is a different color and pattern, for a different digital purpose. “This is for our party.”

She pulls open the self-storage box, revealing an irregularly-shaped pink crystal the size of a melon. It’s a salt-lamp.

Generational cycles are funny things. Growing up means doing whatever your parents didn’t do, but we all have a soft spot for our grandparents. I want to be firm and practical like my grandpa, Mikhaela wants to be strong-minded like my mom. My older daughter Julia, for her part, cultivates a free romantic spirit like my mother-in-law. This, for me, is an endless opportunity for spiritual growth.

“Your salt-lamp.” I repeat. “Why do you need a salt-lamp for a party? Why do you need your salt lamp? You could have ordered a brand new one and it would have been a lot cheaper.”

I know what she’ll say next: “it’s my money. You‘re the one who told me to get a job and now I have eighty.” I open my mouth to tell her that she still ought to save her money for something important. And what is it exactly that she’s doing in these eighty jobs anyway?

But Julia hoists the salt-lamp and says, “it has to be this one. My friends and I licked it into just the right shape.”

I have no idea how to respond to that. I close my mouth and process data while my daughter skips away, tongue-sculpted lamp cradled in her arms. I’ve been out-maneuvered again.

I strip off my gloves and hat and go to find my wife.

Pavlina is on the balcony, sipping chilled white wine with her brother and sister-in-law. They’ve lived in California since the early 2010s, and in some ways they’re more American than me.

“I need to go to the teenager party,” I tell Pavlina.

“Zashto? Ti li si tineidjar?” Why? Are you a teenager?

Pavlina’s brother lifts a bottle of beer in my direction. “Ne trevozhi, bre. Veche si imam pushkata.” This is an in-joke.

According to Bulgarian tradition, Julia’s and Mikhaela’s first teenager party means we adults are all exiled here, to my parents’ house. We’re supposed to have a party, too, but I suspect it will be more like a military command center. Lots of tense pacing while we try to imagine what chaos is unfolding on the front lines.

“What are you talking about?” My dad appears from the kitchen with a tray of cheese and the tactical situation becomes more complicated. Neither of my parents approve of the teenager party, and we’ve been tip-toeing around the topic all week.

“We could be in the attic,” I tell Pavlina. “Or the basement.”

“That is where I’ll lock you when you go insane, yes,” she says.

Pavlina’s brother cackles and my dad says “What?” in a tone that means “I am playing the doddering cyborg grandpa, but I really am angry that you’re talking over my head.”

“It’s the teenager party.” I look out over the balcony, where our kids are doing incomprehensible and scary things in the yard below us. “I mean, what if something happens?”

My dad doesn’t say, “exactly! We have to cancel this whole barbaric ritual.” He says, “I’m worried too.”

“Yooli and Mishi will take care of it,” Pavlina says. “That’s what they’re learning to do.”

“What if someone brings dope?”

“They’ll tell him to smoke it outside.”

I check to make sure my mom isn’t in earshot. “What if things get…physical?”

“Zdravko and Boris are big. They’ll beat him up.” These are Julia and Mikhaela’s cousins, who seem to be engaged in some a virtual sword-fight right now. Mikahela is directing it.

“Now you say, ‘there can be only one sun, one moon, and one great khan!'”

I look around for support, but even my dad is nodding. “You don’t need to worry about boys,” he says.

I pick up a piece of cheese. “Well, at least I got them to pick raspberries with me. Mishi’ll make a pie.”

Pavlina looks serenely out at the Sapphire Mountains. “Sore wa kokuteiru no tame da to itta yo.”

‘She told me they were for cocktails,’ in Japanese, a language which nobody within earshot speaks but me and my wife.

I try to slow my breathing.

It isn’t just the underage drinking. It’s the social situation. My kids keeping secrets from me. Me keeping secrets from my dad. I reach down inside of myself for that still, small, voice. It says “be honest.”

“Mikhaela is making cocktails?” I say.

Everyone stiffens.

The US and Bulgaria have very different ideas about what constitutes proper behavior for teenagers and police officers. My dad, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law now all agree that the teenager party is a terrible idea.

Pavlina, meanwhile, looks steadily at me, letting me know that I have now become her opportunity for spiritual growth.

I put my cheese down on the balcony railing. “I’m just worried. Our kids are going to be alone in the summer house, which we just finished. They’re going to be drinking and smoking and licking salt-lamps.”

“Huh?” says my brother in law.

“What’s going to happen? What are we going to do when something does happen?”

“You’ll deal with it.” Pavlina declares, standing. “Nali si moyat mesten vodach?” Aren’t you my native guide? Another in-joke.

She pats me on the shoulder. “In the mean time, meditate on trusting your children, or at least trusting God to watch over them.”

“The God of fools and children,” I mutter. But that still, small voice speaks to me. “Go pick some more raspberries,” it says.

[sheepsandcattle]

Chapter 7

He’s smoking on the porch in May whilst his mum and Dom bicker as they try to get the fire started inside the house. The smell of smoke is seeping through the open window from both sides, along with the sound of their harmless back-and-forth, but it doesn’t sound like they’re having much luck as Dom huffs, “it’s going out again.”

He’s staying with them tonight, not because he needs to (everything with Jules and Oscar is fine, the black eye long forgotten -- well, he never remembered it in the first place and even if Jules is lying about having no memory of it, the bruise has faded to yellow now and Curly’s not one to hold a grudge, so who gives a toss?) but because he’s made the executive decision to take tomorrow off from parties and deals, so had no plans for tonight.

That and he just... sort of really missed his mum, to be quite honest.

She doesn’t like that he smokes (he doesn’t tell her that he’s been doing it since before he left school, but he reckons he’s too old now to keep it a secret) or his tattoos or how he dresses and she makes sure to say this every chance she gets, but she loves him and she says that wherever she can too. He’s just felt a bit like he’s needed that recently - both the care and criticism.

Maybe it’s because he’s not been in such a domestic setting with his mother since he was eighteen, but something about this makes him feel like a teenager again. He doesn’t mind regressing for a bit; could do with the break, really.

He’s showered and changed back into his jeans and an old t-shirt, thick hair still damp as the wind cools the back of his neck. His mum had fussed over him like she does (“you’ll catch your death if you go outside like that!”) but he hasn’t had a fag since this morning and just wants to get it out of the way so he can relax for the rest of the night.

“El!” She knocks on the window and he turns to smile as his mum waves him back inside. “Come have a look at this. Dom’s bloody useless.”

“I’m not useless, the wood is damp,” he hears Dom call as Curly stomps out his cigarette and makes his way back inside.

The wood is damp and Curly can’t start the fire either. Instead, his mum and Dom share a blanket on the sofa and he hogs his own on the recliner. Dom knows how to get hold of dodgy DVDs and they watch a new thriller with Shia LaBeouf in it. It’s surprisingly comfortable, despite barely knowing his mum’s new fella, and they have a laugh and make daft narrations to make the film feel less intense, like the two of them would do back in the day.

About halfway through, Dom calls it a night (Curls reckons he’s spooked by the movie) and heads upstairs, so Curly joins his mum on the sofa and falls asleep with his cheek smushed against her shoulder sometime after Shia snogs some pretty girl on a balcony on-screen.

He remembers getting changed in the downstairs toilet but must have been half-sleepwalking when he went to bed because, when he wakes up in the middle of the night to toss his shirt off to one side, he doesn’t remember how he got there.

***

He doesn’t really take the room in until the morning; blue and green, just like he left it. A few books he never read (and never will read) still line the shelf over his desk along with old trinkets, an empty Voltswaggen Beatle-shaped piggy bank (that he considers taking back to the flat with him to store is pre-rolls so Oscar can’t nick them again) and a Gameboy Advance (that’s not worked since before he even moved to England but has a mint Finial Fantasy casing that he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice to the scrapyard, and still wouldn’t dream of it now).

Moving from England to America meant days of clearing his childhood room of shit he’d forgotten was ever even there. It’s scary just how few things of sentimental value he actually had once it came down to it. In the end, he filled a Dr. Martens box with things he just couldn’t part with, but he hasn’t got the foggiest idea where that even is now. Collecting dust in his mum’s loft, maybe.

Even without the extra baggage, Curly always had a hard time keeping on top of tidying in his room; anything from dirty washing to freshly dried laundry piling up; a ‘floordrobe’, his mum had called it. The itchy carpet is visible now he’s not there to clutter it and his wardrobe has even fewer clothes than it had when he slept in the room, which wasn’t much to begin with; too idle to buy clothes he’d never have a reason to wear.

His wardrobe in the flat isn’t exactly bursting, but it speaks volumes on his social life.

Despite the homeliness of the rest of this house, his bedroom is a weird mix of comfort and sadness. It feels familiar - the day they painted the walls was nice, and putting the bed frame up was the most hilarious two hours he’s ever shared with his mum - but it also feels lonely and cold, memories of hours spent alone when his mum was at work and the rest of the house felt too big and depressing when it was just him there to fill it.

The sound of bickering pulls him from his thoughts and Curls heads downstairs where a full English breakfast is waiting for him. His mum and Dom fall silent just as he steps into the kitchen but he’s not sure why they stand down on his account.

He decides to feign ignorance. “Morning,” he grumbles and his belly does the same.

Dom returns the greeting, says, “I was about to call you down,” as his mum smiles stiffly and slides an egg out of the pan and onto the last plate. She places it onto the table and goes back for the other two. Curly takes a seat, rubbing his palm over his chest (where his latest tattoo is exposed and still healing and itchy) as he thanks her.

The room is filled with dry coughs, sniffs and shuffling in seats as they begin to eat and, as the air thickens, he begins to wonder what exactly it was that he’d walked in on earlier. Was the argument more serious than he’d thought? It feels like somebody’s about to break some bad news and his mum keeps exchanging looks with her boyfriend, who gives the same look back as if to say no, you.

“Is everything—“ Curly begins, right as the other two say, “Elliot,” and, “Curly,” in unison. They all fall silent again, discouraged, until Curls clears his throat, asks, “what?”

For a second he thinks they’re back to square one, everyone exchanging expectant looks, pushing each other to speak. Eventually, though, Dom huffs and pushes himself away from the table, leaving the room. ‘The last thing we need is privacy,’ Curly thinks as the tension only gets thicker now it’s just the two of them.

A similar scene comes to mind: his mum sat opposite him at the kitchen table in Essex as she says “we still love each other. We’re just not in love anymore, El. Does that make sense?”

But then, Dom is a good bloke with great music taste and a mint sense of humour and everything, but Curly’s sure even his mum must see that this kind of confessional is a really unnecessary way to tell him that her six-month-old relationship isn’t working out.

His mum takes her hair down just to tie it back into a bun again, looking anywhere but in his direction, but then Dom’s back again with Curly’s bag in his hand. It’s open as he places it on the table.

So it’s not them; it’s him. Okay, well. Fuck.

Nobody says anything as Curly racks his brain for what they could possibly have seen and they seem to be waiting, giving him the chance to own up before they accuse him. His fake ID, maybe? Does he still have a bowl in there? It could be his flip phone, filled with messages from dealers and buyers, but that’s been dead since last night. Maybe she saw his knife - but that’s only there because he doesn’t like to leave it in his car, but Jules had warned him about that one bloke in Holbrook, not that he ever got around to meeting— Oh shit.

“Cocaine, Elliot?” His mum looks deflated, he now notices. She looks tired and nervous. When had she found it? This morning? Last night? How long has she-- “How long have you been taking cocaine? And in my house?”

Okay, well shit. He’s clawing for an excuse that won’t dig him into an even deeper hole as Dom pulls a chair up next to his mother. He feels like he’s back in custody. Curly slowly places his utensils down on his near-full plate.

“Mum,” he begins, swallowing just to stall. “It’s not coke.” He has to remind himself that he’s a grown up now - he doesn’t need to sit wringing his hands like a guilty child. He finds the nerve to say, “it’s heroin—“

“Oh my—“

“It’s not mine!” He can’t stand to see her the way she is: hand over her chest in shock as Dom rubs her shoulder in reassurance. So he blurts out the lies- just white lies. “It’s for a mate. I didn’t— I was meant to drop it off before I got here but it didn’t work out.” It’s basically the truth.

Dom says, “Curly do you realise—“

“I know. I know it’s bad, yeah? But it’s not mine.” He wants to say ‘I’d never do anything like that,’ but he’s trying to keep the falsities to a minimum. “He’s not even a mate, really. A friend of a friend.”

“Who? The guy you’re holding drugs for isn’t even somebody you know?” Dom again. “He’s just some—”

“Oh, wind your neck in, Dom,” he snaps, caught up in a moment's panic. He stutters a bit for more words but settles for a long groan as he pushes his plate away before burying his face in his hands. “Sorry.” He takes a few breaths, trying to gather his thoughts and figure out exactly where to go from here. He looks up again, mentally refreshed and says, “sorry. I’m sorry… For snapping and for the drugs. Listen though: I’m twenty, I’m not a mug. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, so do I: you’re carrying drugs, Elliot,” his mum amends. “Is this something to do with Jules? I knew that boy didn’t seem right.”

“Mum, you met him once in a supermarket - you don’t know anything. He was buying chicken and rice, for Christ sake, he wasn’t exactly--” He huffs - pauses before he says something that’ll bite him in the arse. “Anyway, it’s got nothing to do with Jules. It’s just a favour - a one-time favour. Let’s not ignore the fact that you went in my bag, yeah?”

She shakes her head defensively, says, “for your clothes. You fell asleep in your jeans.”

He decides against saying, ‘I’ve fallen asleep in worse conditions.’ Strikes a massive, thick line right through that argument.

It takes him long enough, but he gets his mum to calm down not too long after breakfast’s gone cold. He swears he’ll keep out of it all once the H is out of his hands and he apologises again and again and then once more later on when he’s at the front door with his bag over one shoulder, saying goodbye.

“I know you’re not stupid,” his mum says when he’s hunched in on himself guiltily, buried in a thick leather trench coat and scuffing chunky black boots against the porch. “But be careful.”

Curls just nods, pulls her into a hug and presses a kiss to her cheek. “See you soon,” he says, then nods towards Dom over her shoulder before he turns towards the street.

“Oh, El?”

He turns just as he’s pushing the key into his car door.

“Give your dad a call--” she reminds him, smiling through a sigh as she folds her arms over her front like mums do. “--or he’ll keep calling me. He—”

“Misses me, I know.” He waves his hands, feels guilty. He’s seen the texts and heard the voicemails from both his dad and his sister - keeps forgetting to reply, or just can’t bring himself to do so. “I’ll call them.”

His mother nods. “I love you.”

“You too, mum,” he says as he pulls open his car door, smiles, then ducks inside.

He pulls away from the curb and has his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear before he’s even turned out of the street.

“Jules, mate, I need a fat spliff - you won’t fucking believe what’s just happened.”

[chxstxin]

since i posted last week-ish about seeing disobedience, my inbox has been full of questions about the film and people asking me to review it so i figured, seeing as i love it so much and people clearly want to hear about it, i should write up a proper review! full disclosure, i am not in any way a film critic so this is basically just going to be the ramblings of that bitch who burned through her bank account going to 2/3 disobedience screenings at tiff. so like, a completely unbiased and well-informed opinion.

  — light spoilers for disobedience (2017)

first off, i’ve read the book that the film is based on (disobedience by naomi alderman) and i do recommend it for anyone who hasn’t read it, but it’s very different than the film. the book, to me at least, was super upsetting because poor esti was so in love but she had to learn to live with the fact that ronit would always leave her. there’s a bit where esti confesses that she never asked ronit to stay because she couldn’t bear to hear her say no and ronit thinks it over; “if these words, and these, and these, had been spoken, would i have stayed? sometimes i think she was nothing to me, nothing at all, that i shrugged her off and never looked back. but it’s more complicated than you think, how you feel about a person. sometimes i think if she’d asked me, even once, to stay, i would’ve stayed forever.” through the whole novel it felt like ronit couldn’t make up her mind whether or not she gave a single fuck about esti anymore while esti had been essentially waiting for ronit to love her back and save her from her miserably unfulfilling life since they were kids, which, just for the record, i didn’t hate because i’m a sucker for that sad shit, but it was definitely upsetting. i’ll probably reference back to the book as i go on, but i just wanna wrap this bit up with a quote from near the end which pretty much sums up why i want to fight naomi alderman. “esti is watching ronit, too. she’s thinking that ronit seems less, now, than she did before. it’s not that she is less, esti knows that, but that she used to seem too much. there was a time when esti thought that ronit’s face contained the world, but now, well, it’s just a face. she’s grateful for that, grateful for the change, because it’s not good to see the world in a face that doesn’t belong to you, that’s always turning away from you.”

anyway, onwards an upwards, the film differs from the book insofar as there’s never really a moment that you doubt that ronit loves (or at least cares a great deal for) esti. the director, sebastián lelio, said during his Q&A something along the lines of ‘ronit is disconnected from her past and culture and esti is disconnected from her body, but together they help eachother to become whole as individuals’. ronit pushes esti to see that she has a choice, and we watch esti, who, when we first meet her, is so achingly quiet and small, grow into a woman who is willing to fight for her agency and the future that was denied to her from birth. her scene with dovid where he tells her that there’s been a complaint about her behaviour with ronit and she admits that she was the one who told ronit that the rav had passed away and that she did it because she knew what would happen if ronit would come home, is so powerful because dovid is yelling at her and pleading with her and we finally get to see her stand up for herself and take up space and refuse to be ashamed or reduced to the hollow ‘perfect wife’ that puts out once a week and never causes problems. in all honesty, i can’t imagine a more perfect esti than rachel mcadams. she broke my heart, made me laugh, and had me rooting for her and empathizing with her for the entire two hour run of the film. in true mcadams fashion, she goes out with a big ol’ romantic gesture that made me bawl my eyes out both times i saw it (i actually turned to my friend the second time and said “how pathetic would it be if i cried at the end again?” i can now say from experience, the answer is pretty pathetic). 

weisz absolutely shines as ronit who is just so completely lovable in her unwillingness to shrink or change herself to fit the expectations of the people she grew up with (awkward moments and all). she has so much heart, and i know i said the film wasn’t as sad as the book, but watching ronit stare up at dovid with those big sad eyes and say “i want my father to know that i loved him” was pretty fucking heart-wrenching. ronit was essentially disowned by her rabbi father as a teenager  —  a fact that’s used against her by one character in a line which probably makes the list for the top ten cruelest things i’ve ever heard said — and due to his position as a ‘giant of torah’ in their community, she rarely saw him before their relationship fell apart. a good portion of her arc has to do with being forced to mourn the loss of someone she loved so much but never quite had the opportunity to know. ronit stumbles through life as an orphan, thrust back into the town she was all-but thrown out of, and left with no other option but to confront the past, and the loved ones, that she’s spent her whole life running from. in hendon she’s unwelcome, inconvenient, and treated like a pariah and ticking time bomb, even, at times, by her own cousin and childhood best friend. everyone but esti. ronit and esti are two sides of the same coin, and their relationship is undoubtedly the heart of the film. i loved it all so much i feel like choosing a favourite scene would be near-impossible, but every time i think about disobedience, i think about the two of them standing in the now empty house ronit grew up in and humming along to the rav’s old radio playing lovesong by the cure. if a single song could sum up the entirety of a one hour fifty seven minute film, that would be it.

“whenever i’m alone with you, you make me feel like i am free again.”

[jmmgroup-blog]

Will registration at DIFC relieves anxiety for expats with assets

Charlotte Sherwin and her husband Tom are currently in the process of getting their will notarised at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC Courts).

The Dubai residents have drawn up the document to ensure that if Mr Sherwin, a commercial director in the oil industry, were to pass away first, his wife would maintain guardianship of their two teenage children and receive their assets in Dubai, and vice versa.

“We are long-term expats, and it would be very scary if something happened, because we have a lot of money invested in a house, a boat, and cars,” says Ms Sherwin, 49, a PR executive from the UK who lives in Green Community West.

The couple will join the more than 2,000 UAE residents who have already registered wills at the DIFC Wills and Probate Registry (DIFC WPR), since the initiative was first set up almost two years ago in May 2015. It is designed to help ensure non-Muslims with assets in Dubai can bypass Sharia law and instead abide by internationally recognised common law.

“We have already registered over 2,100 wills,” says Sean Hird, the director at DIFC Wills & Probate Registry, adding that the registry offers a “secure gateway for families, business and homeowners to plan ahead while they can”.

Next week the registry is expected to launch an online property will after it noticed an increase in demand for wills governing real estate. Mr Hird says it will be “a digital platform where users can protect their assets through a few simple clicks” adding that it is designed for “rapidity” and will take ” the headache out of securing English language, common law legal protection for real estate assets in Dubai – and soon Ras Al Khaimah.”

But despite the presence of the Dubai registry and talk of an expatriate-only court in Abu Dhabi, many expats are unclear whether getting a will registered is necessary – particularly if they only have a few assets.

James Spence, the assistant vice president of Globaleye says having a will is like climbing with a rope. “If you fall, it may or it may not save you, there’s no guarantee – however, it is far better to go climbing with a rope,” he says.

“From a financial advisory point of view, it is far better to have a will written where you come from, governing your assets in your home country.

“You also have to be aware that writing a last will and testament here can often void your will back in your home country.”

Devanand Mahadeva, a lawyer with Goodwins law firm in Abu Dhabi, says while the DIFC WPR is “good” for those based in Dubai, it “does not become holistic with regards to people who want to deal with their inheritance to cover the movable and immovable assets elsewhere in the UAE or other parts of the world.

“Furthermore, the execution of the probated document has to be done through the regular courts in Dubai. Another deterrent being the cost of registration at the DIFC WPR which is considered high by people who have a simple inheritable estate like end of service benefits, small deposits or movable assets.”

However, if you have a property or business in Dubai, Cynthia Trench, a principal of Trench & Associates says a DIFC-registered will is “the only valid option” for non-Muslim expatriates as it offers “peace of mind” that their chosen beneficiaries will receive their estate.

This peace of mind is key in a community where many are unclear how their assets would be handled if they died.

If a non-Muslim and their spouse dies without leaving a will in place, any assets they owned in the UAE, and the guardianship of their children, is often dealt with according to the local Sharia law, says Nita Maru, a managing partner at TWS Legal Consultants. The grieving spouse can then face a lengthy legal process, and the decision the court comes to might leave a female spouse feeling short-changed.

“The Sharia system is based on a fixed share allocation system for the disbursement of assets,” says Ms Maru. “A surviving wife who has children qualifies for an eighth of her husband’s estate, and a surviving husband who has children qualifies for one quarter of his wife’s estate. The remainder of the estate is distributed among other family members, depending on who is alive at the date of death.”

But although a DIFC-registered will is currently the closest thing to a guarantee that a Dubai-based non-Muslim’s assets go to chosen loved ones, other options are still available on the market, which are catching expats out unawares.

The Sherwins say they wasted Dh6,000 on a will lodged with Dubai Notary, which they subsequently discovered might not hold up in court. This they said was drafted by a non-legal consulting company referred to them by their house insurance provider.

“I was asked to read and sign each page, and then the back of this document was stamped, stating that it had been filed with Dubai Courts,” explains Ms Sherwin. “I thought ‘this is great, and I’ve got a sticker to prove it’. But a couple of friends kept telling us it wasn’t going to work.”

Ms Sherwin says she then panicked and transferred significant funds offshore. “I felt we were very vulnerable that our money might be frozen. Before DIFC-registered wills became known, people were just grasping at straws to try to protect themselves in some way.”

Ms Trench says over a dozen of her clients have been mis-sold wills by unlicensed providers and have come to her following the death of a loved one. “There are many families affected due to the unclear rules and the Sharia Court’s refusal to accept ‘home’ wills, or any wills for that matter, which are contrary to Sharia. There are still a huge number of unlicensed will writers out there. I hope that further legislation will soon come into effect that will set firm guidelines to protect the public against these unscrupulous unlicensed providers.”

While those without property may think registering their will is unnecessary, the service offered by the DIFC WPR also covers bank accounts, shares in a business, vehicles, end of service benefits or other employee benefits and personal chattels, such as jewellery.

However, the service does not come cheap.

It costs Dh10,000 to register a single will at the DIFC WPR and Dh15,000 for a mirror will for couples. Plus there are lawyer fees ranging from Dh2,800 to Dh3,700. The legal process usually takes about six months and later amendments to the will cost Dh550, and can be done without needing a lawyer.

Ms Trench says it is also very useful in terms of the appointment of interim and permanent guardians. For that purpose, the Dh5,000 “Guardianship Only” will, is designed for those with children residing in Dubai but without assets held here, who still want reassurance that their children will be looked after by a person of their own choosing when they die.

Digital entrepreneur Manisha Dutta and her husband don’t own property in Dubai, but they do have cars, bank accounts, and shares. The couple is about to draw up a DIFC-registered will to cover those assets, as well as guardianship of their son and daughter.

“We want to be very careful with the Sharia law that our children don’t end up going to my husband’s parents,” says Ms Dutta, from India. “In our case this is not a very comfortable option, because our in-laws don’t live in Dubai and they’re always travelling. I would like to have my sister as the guardian.”

So what happens if you die without a DIFC-registered will in place?

The Personal Status Courts of First Instance in the UAE will stick to Sharia law precepts, regardless of whether the deceased is a Muslim or not, says Ms Maru. Under Sharia law, children are given over to a male relative of the husband’s family, rather than their mother. “While a surviving wife may be appointed as a custodian of any children of the marriage, she may not automatically be appointed as the legal guardian,” she says.

Meanwhile, personal assets including bank accounts are frozen until inheritance is determined, and family members are often left without access to money during this period.

Plus the court procedure can be lengthy and expensive, as Dubai resident Delphine, who asked for her name to be changed, has learnt. The death of the Briton’s husband from cancer three years ago was a shock. Although the couple had a will in their home country, covering their assets there, the money, cars and two houses they owned in Dubai were subject to local Sharia law. “We didn’t put a will in place here,” says Dephine, who has two sons ages 15 and 16.

After her husband’s death, she says she emptied most of their accounts, “with a minimum amount left in”, before they were frozen 10 days later. “I prolonged submitting his death certificate for as long as possible, because I knew I wanted to do a few things first,” she admits.

For the next two years, while the court decided her cases, Delphine had no access to the accounts or assets that the couple had jointly held in Dubai. “I was fortunate that I still had my own bank account and car – without those things, I would have had big problems,” says Delphine. The Dubai Courts awarded the majority of the money and assets to her sons, then to her father in law, and one-sixth went to her.

“My father-in-law signed his portion over to me, and was happy to do that, which was a tremendous relief,” she explains. “I know of stories where it hasn’t been amicable between families and has taken seven years to clear through the courts.”

The guardianship of Delphine’s children was awarded to her father-in-law, but Delphine worked amicably with him to get this ruling changed, bringing him over to Dubai three times at various stages from the UK to address the courts. “I also needed to provide a witness, who preferably had to be a male Muslim,” she says. “I got somebody from my husband’s company to do that for me.”

While the courts have ordered for her son’s money to be released to them when they’re 21, Delphine says she is able to access the internet bank account in which the funds are held.

In the end, the two-year process set her back Dh12,000, and involved four separate court cases costing Dh3,000 each. Delphine brought her expenses down by representing herself without a lawyer. “The legal process is do-able, but it depends on the relationship you have with male family members,” she says. “I felt the courts had our best interests at heart. It is frustrating and, of course, as a mum and a wife, you feel the money should all go to you. But in the end, things worked out the way that I wanted.”

pf@thenational.ae

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Source: The National

Will registration at DIFC relieves anxiety for expats with assets was originally published on JMM Group of Companies

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Will registration at DIFC relieves anxiety for expats with assets

Charlotte Sherwin and her husband Tom are currently in the process of getting their will notarised at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC Courts).

The Dubai residents have drawn up the document to ensure that if Mr Sherwin, a commercial director in the oil industry, were to pass away first, his wife would maintain guardianship of their two teenage children and receive their assets in Dubai, and vice versa.

"We are long-term expats, and it would be very scary if something happened, because we have a lot of money invested in a house, a boat, and cars," says Ms Sherwin, 49, a PR executive from the UK who lives in Green Community West.

The couple will join the more than 2,000 UAE residents who have already registered wills at the DIFC Wills and Probate Registry (DIFC WPR), since the initiative was first set up almost two years ago in May 2015. It is designed to help ensure non-Muslims with assets in Dubai can bypass Sharia law and instead abide by internationally recognised common law.

"We have already registered over 2,100 wills," says Sean Hird, the director at DIFC Wills & Probate Registry, adding that the registry offers a "secure gateway for families, business and homeowners to plan ahead while they can".

Next week the registry is expected to launch an online property will after it noticed an increase in demand for wills governing real estate. Mr Hird says it will be "a digital platform where users can protect their assets through a few simple clicks" adding that it is designed for "rapidity" and will take " the headache out of securing English language, common law legal protection for real estate assets in Dubai - and soon Ras Al Khaimah."

But despite the presence of the Dubai registry and talk of an expatriate-only court in Abu Dhabi, many expats are unclear whether getting a will registered is necessary - particularly if they only have a few assets.

James Spence, the assistant vice president of Globaleye says having a will is like climbing with a rope. "If you fall, it may or it may not save you, there's no guarantee - however, it is far better to go climbing with a rope," he says.

"From a financial advisory point of view, it is far better to have a will written where you come from, governing your assets in your home country.

"You also have to be aware that writing a last will and testament here can often void your will back in your home country."

Devanand Mahadeva, a lawyer with Goodwins law firm in Abu Dhabi, says while the DIFC WPR is "good" for those based in Dubai, it "does not become holistic with regards to people who want to deal with their inheritance to cover the movable and immovable assets elsewhere in the UAE or other parts of the world.

"Furthermore, the execution of the probated document has to be done through the regular courts in Dubai. Another deterrent being the cost of registration at the DIFC WPR which is considered high by people who have a simple inheritable estate like end of service benefits, small deposits or movable assets."

However, if you have a property or business in Dubai, Cynthia Trench, a principal of Trench & Associates says a DIFC-registered will is "the only valid option" for non-Muslim expatriates as it offers "peace of mind" that their chosen beneficiaries will receive their estate.

This peace of mind is key in a community where many are unclear how their assets would be handled if they died.

If a non-Muslim and their spouse dies without leaving a will in place, any assets they owned in the UAE, and the guardianship of their children, is often dealt with according to the local Sharia law, says Nita Maru, a managing partner at TWS Legal Consultants. The grieving spouse can then face a lengthy legal process, and the decision the court comes to might leave a female spouse feeling short-changed.

"The Sharia system is based on a fixed share allocation system for the disbursement of assets," says Ms Maru. "A surviving wife who has children qualifies for an eighth of her husband's estate, and a surviving husband who has children qualifies for one quarter of his wife's estate. The remainder of the estate is distributed among other family members, depending on who is alive at the date of death."

But although a DIFC-registered will is currently the closest thing to a guarantee that a Dubai-based non-Muslim's assets go to chosen loved ones, other options are still available on the market, which are catching expats out unawares.

The Sherwins say they wasted Dh6,000 on a will lodged with Dubai Notary, which they subsequently discovered might not hold up in court. This they said was drafted by a non-legal consulting company referred to them by their house insurance provider.

"I was asked to read and sign each page, and then the back of this document was stamped, stating that it had been filed with Dubai Courts," explains Ms Sherwin. "I thought 'this is great, and I've got a sticker to prove it'. But a couple of friends kept telling us it wasn't going to work."

Ms Sherwin says she then panicked and transferred significant funds offshore. "I felt we were very vulnerable that our money might be frozen. Before DIFC-registered wills became known, people were just grasping at straws to try to protect themselves in some way."

Ms Trench says over a dozen of her clients have been mis-sold wills by unlicensed providers and have come to her following the death of a loved one. "There are many families affected due to the unclear rules and the Sharia Court's refusal to accept 'home' wills, or any wills for that matter, which are contrary to Sharia. There are still a huge number of unlicensed will writers out there. I hope that further legislation will soon come into effect that will set firm guidelines to protect the public against these unscrupulous unlicensed providers."

While those without property may think registering their will is unnecessary, the service offered by the DIFC WPR also covers bank accounts, shares in a business, vehicles, end of service benefits or other employee benefits and personal chattels, such as jewellery.

However, the service does not come cheap.

It costs Dh10,000 to register a single will at the DIFC WPR and Dh15,000 for a mirror will for couples. Plus there are lawyer fees ranging from Dh2,800 to Dh3,700. The legal process usually takes about six months and later amendments to the will cost Dh550, and can be done without needing a lawyer.

Ms Trench says it is also very useful in terms of the appointment of interim and permanent guardians. For that purpose, the Dh5,000 "Guardianship Only" will, is designed for those with children residing in Dubai but without assets held here, who still want reassurance that their children will be looked after by a person of their own choosing when they die.

Digital entrepreneur Manisha Dutta and her husband don't own property in Dubai, but they do have cars, bank accounts, and shares. The couple is about to draw up a DIFC-registered will to cover those assets, as well as guardianship of their son and daughter.

"We want to be very careful with the Sharia law that our children don't end up going to my husband's parents," says Ms Dutta, from India. "In our case this is not a very comfortable option, because our in-laws don't live in Dubai and they're always travelling. I would like to have my sister as the guardian."

So what happens if you die without a DIFC-registered will in place?

The Personal Status Courts of First Instance in the UAE will stick to Sharia law precepts, regardless of whether the deceased is a Muslim or not, says Ms Maru. Under Sharia law, children are given over to a male relative of the husband's family, rather than their mother. "While a surviving wife may be appointed as a custodian of any children of the marriage, she may not automatically be appointed as the legal guardian," she says.

Meanwhile, personal assets including bank accounts are frozen until inheritance is determined, and family members are often left without access to money during this period.

Plus the court procedure can be lengthy and expensive, as Dubai resident Delphine, who asked for her name to be changed, has learnt. The death of the Briton's husband from cancer three years ago was a shock. Although the couple had a will in their home country, covering their assets there, the money, cars and two houses they owned in Dubai were subject to local Sharia law. "We didn't put a will in place here," says Dephine, who has two sons ages 15 and 16.

After her husband's death, she says she emptied most of their accounts, "with a minimum amount left in", before they were frozen 10 days later. "I prolonged submitting his death certificate for as long as possible, because I knew I wanted to do a few things first," she admits.

For the next two years, while the court decided her cases, Delphine had no access to the accounts or assets that the couple had jointly held in Dubai. "I was fortunate that I still had my own bank account and car - without those things, I would have had big problems," says Delphine. The Dubai Courts awarded the majority of the money and assets to her sons, then to her father in law, and one-sixth went to her.

"My father-in-law signed his portion over to me, and was happy to do that, which was a tremendous relief," she explains. "I know of stories where it hasn't been amicable between families and has taken seven years to clear through the courts."

The guardianship of Delphine's children was awarded to her father-in-law, but Delphine worked amicably with him to get this ruling changed, bringing him over to Dubai three times at various stages from the UK to address the courts. "I also needed to provide a witness, who preferably had to be a male Muslim," she says. "I got somebody from my husband's company to do that for me."

While the courts have ordered for her son's money to be released to them when they're 21, Delphine says she is able to access the internet bank account in which the funds are held.

In the end, the two-year process set her back Dh12,000, and involved four separate court cases costing Dh3,000 each. Delphine brought her expenses down by representing herself without a lawyer. "The legal process is do-able, but it depends on the relationship you have with male family members," she says. "I felt the courts had our best interests at heart. It is frustrating and, of course, as a mum and a wife, you feel the money should all go to you. But in the end, things worked out the way that I wanted."

pf@thenational.ae

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