Does a New Zealand bank or other financial institution hold money for your loved one? More than $40,000?
Or does your loved one own land or other real estate?
Do you already have a grant of probate or letters of administration – or similar with a different name – issued by a court outside New Zealand?
From Australia, the United Kingdom, or another Commonwealth country? Or from Ireland or Hong Kong?
If so, you may apply to reseal the grant in New Zealand.
(If there’s an existing grant of administration from elsewhere, you cannot ‘reseal’ the grant. You will need to apply for a new grant of administration in New Zealand.)
To reseal the grant, our $707 fee includes our work and the $67 High Court fee. (It also includes GST, if any.) We deduct $200 if you use the online form on this page to provide the initial information we need.
All the executors/administrators must be part of the application to reseal the grant, even if we deal with only one person directly.
We can accept instructions direct from the executors/administrators, or from a solicitor acting on their behalf.
How it works
- You complete this form. As part of the form, you upload a copy of the overseas grant (and will, if any), and your photo ID.
- We confirm there are no complications.
- If you want to go ahead, we prepare documents that we email to you.
- We invoice you.
- You print the documents and get them signed and witnessed.
- You pay our invoice.
- You courier the documents to us – along with the original grant. (If there is a will and the original grant does not include a copy of the will, we also need a copy of the will that is authenticated by the court that issued the grant. This applies in England and Wales, and Australia (Victoria), South Africa, and maybe elsewhere.)
- If you don’t want to send the original grant, you can send us an authenticated copy issued by the court that issued the original grant. This authenticated copy may be called an ‘exemplification’ or some other fancy name. (However, it is simpler to send us the original. It is highly unlikely to go astray. If it does, that’s when you apply to the court for an authenticated copy to replace the original that has gone astray.)
- We courier everything to the High Court of New Zealand.
- The registrar reseals the original grant by adding some new wording and the New Zealand seal.
- The original resealed grant is then sent back to us.
- On your behalf, we send a certified copy of the resealed grant to 1 or 2 New Zealand financial institutions, if you provide details. This is included in our fee. You liaise direct with those institutions to make all other arrangements for uplifting the funds.
- We then mail the original grant back to you (untracked airmail, no extra charge), or courier it if you cover the extra cost (between $45-75, including monitoring tracking). (You may also choose registered airmail which requires a signature on delivery but does not provide tracking information to users – $30.)
