Enquiry and screening – grant of administration in New Zealand

If someone has died, and you think you need probate or letters of administration in New Zealand, please use this automated questionnaire. By ‘you’, we mean an executor of the will (if any), or a close family member (if there is no will), or someone asking on their behalf.

We will tell you who should be the applicant/s, and what our fee is likely to be, and why (if there are complications that make it more expensive than our standard fee). You can then decide whether to go ahead.

You pay nothing for our response to this questionnaire. You don’t have to go ahead if you don’t want to.

Take your time, there’s no rush

Yes, this questionnaire is more complicated than a standard online ‘contact form’.

That’s because we want to provide full legal guidance, which requires careful consideration of numerous different facts.

We start by telling you how the online questionnaire works.

Then we ask whether there has already been any type of ‘grant of administration’ in your loved one’s estate. The answer is almost always ‘no’. (It would be ‘yes’ if, for instance, probate had been granted in Australia, or letters of administration had been granted 20 years ago and the administrator had died before completing the job.) It’s important to get this right – the wrong answer sends everyone off on the wrong track!

We check that this High Court paperwork is definitely needed – we don’t want to waste our time or your money.

We ask whether there’s a will – including anything that is an invalid will.

A ‘valid will’ usually means a duly signed and witnessed will. It is still valid if you can only find a copy. (There’s a separate question about whether the original will is available.)

If there’s a valid will, we ask about executors and whether they are available, and other factors that can cause complications.

If there’s no valid will, we ask about your loved one’s relationships and surviving family members. That’s because the law has rules about who can be the applicant/s, based on that information. We ask about the value of the estate (in general terms) because that changes the options. We ask about specific procedural steps that may or may not have been taken. We check several other points that can cause complications if they apply in your loved one’s case.

We ask about your loved one’s death, to check for factors that could require additional work (and fees).

You can save your progress (and resume later) – see the ‘Save Progress’ menu to the left of the questionnaire. 

If the answers don’t fit your situation, or if you have more questions, there’s a chance to add information at the end.

You can check your answers as you go – they should be on the righthand side of your screen.

This questionnaire covers the same material as a phone call, but in less time and with more safeguards. However, if you find you really cannot manage the questionnaire, we can arrange to phone you instead. That option is offered early on in the questionnaire.

Let’s start….