Australian Reseals of Probate and Letters of Administration in New Zealand
Only last week I was contacted by an Australian client surprised to find out that her mother (who lived and died in Australia) had a substantial bank account in New Zealand - a bittersweet windfall discovered over a decade after her mother’s death!
With trans-Tasman travel and living arrangements rising in popularity for many years, more and more people in Australia are finding that, when a loved one dies, some of their assets are "over the ditch".
They are also finding out that the grant of probate or grant of letters of administration they received in Australia needs to be resealed in order to access the assets in New Zealand.
Australian reseals
The most common states we are finding requiring reseals in New Zealand are Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
However, Western Australian, South Australia and Tasmania are also reasonably frequent and these states seem to have the probate systems most like that in New Zealand which results in the smoothest reseal applications.
Why is a reseal required?
One would think that uplifting estate assets between New Zealand and Australia, being such close neighbours, would be the simplest of processes, but because an international border has been crossed, another court application for a reseal of that original probate or letters of administration is required.
If you would like to learn more about why reseals are required, we have a recent article on the very valid question of “Why do I need a Reseal?” here.
When probate or letters of administration are granted, the court which makes that grant “seals” the document by placing a stamp, a sticker or an imprint on it. This is called the court “seal” as originally these were all made of sealing wax. The seal is what turns the document into a valid grant that can be used to unlock the assets of the estate.
A reseal is when a court in one country (New Zealand in our case) takes a grant of probate or letters of administration made in the court of another country and puts a second seal on it. That transforms the document from a grant of probate that is only valid in New South Wales, Australia (for example) into a grant of probate that is valid in New Zealand as well.
Banks, Kiwisaver and insurance providers here in New Zealand won’t accept an Australian grant in order to release the estate assets. However, if you get that same grant resealed in New Zealand, they will accept it because it will have that all-important seal of the New Zealand High Court.
If you would like to learn more about reseals in general, have a look at our article here.
Reseal current issues
Each state in Australia produces a slightly different probate document and have their own procedures for producing them. There have been a number of changes in recent years, especially since the outbreak of the pandemic, which are making it easier and smoother to apply for probate or letters of administration in Australia itself, but these differences can cause problems for reseals in New Zealand and sometimes require an extra step to be taken before our court will grant the reseal.
The Supreme Court of Victoria in particular with their heavily electronic based RedCrest probate system is providing the most common source of issues for New Zealand reseals.
The extra step is usually not terribly difficult; it almost always means that you will be obliged to apply to the Australian court which issued the grant for a different type of copy of it (often called an “exemplification”). However, this is a cause of extra time and expense in the process, so if you are expecting to need a reseal in New Zealand, it pays to order the type of copy our court will need at the same time you make the initial application for the probate or letters of administration in Australia.
The most common issues we are seeing are:
probates where the will is not attached, but the probate refers to a will:
our court requires a probate that refers to a will to have that will attached by the court which issued the probate; or
for the will to be provided with a note or covering letter from the court which issued the probate showing that it is the will associated with the probate in question; and
probates and letters of administration which are only issued in electronic form:
our court considers these valid, but requires a paper document from the court which issued the probate to grant a reseal; and
New Zealand banks, Kiwisaver, insurance providers and other asset holders will require that paper document reseal as well.
Letters of administration are granted when there is no will, so in those cases nothing needs to be attached to the grant of letters of administration for us to arrange a reseal, but it still needs to be a paper copy of letters of administration.
See our handy comparison article for an explanation of the difference between probate and letters of administration here.
For more information
If you are dealing with an estate where a reseal is required in New Zealand, Jenny Lowe will be happy to help. You can email her at jenny.lowe@nzprobatesandreseals.com. Jenny is one of few legal specialists in New Zealand for probate and letters of administration applications, especially those coming from overseas. We specialise in making these applications simple and painless for you.