Estate planning checklist Australia: your 30/90-day plan

6 September 26
Uncategorized

Sign four documents and you have covered most of what matters: a valid Will, an enduring power of attorney, an enduring guardian or advance care directive, and up-to-date superannuation nominations. Add a one-page asset register and brief your executor, and simple estates are largely done. Complex estates, blended families, business owners, and anyone with a self-managed super fund need a solicitor before signing anything. Review the lot every three to five years.

TL;DR:

  • Basic estate plans require a valid Will, enduring power of attorney, guardian or advance care directive, and superannuation nomination, with a simple asset register and briefing for the executor.
  • Building an estate plan in the correct order involves creating an asset register first, choosing decision makers based on criteria, and signing documents properly in sequence, with super nominations finalized after legal advice.
  • Trusts and complex structures, including family companies and SMSFs, need professional review, as DIY templates often overlook necessary legal protections and proper drafting.
  • Lapsed super nominations, improper witnessing, and uncoordinated estate structures are common mistakes that lead to disputes and unintended outcomes.
  • Digital assets should be listed securely with clear instructions given to the executor, using password managers or digital vaults, and storage of original documents should always be offline and accessible.

Table of Contents

What goes on your estate planning checklist for Australia?

A working estate plan comes down to four legal documents plus two pieces of housekeeping. Get these right and you have covered the core requirements Moneysmart recommends for every Australian adult.

Core legal documents:

  • Will — names your executor, guardians for minor children, and who gets what.
  • Enduring power of attorney (EPA) — lets someone manage your money and legal affairs if you lose capacity, while you’re alive.
  • Enduring guardian / advance care directive — covers medical and lifestyle decisions if you can’t make them yourself.
  • Super binding death benefit nomination — directs your super and any life insurance held inside it, separately from your Will.

Administrative housekeeping:

  • ID documents, bank and loan account details, insurance policies, and property deeds gathered in one place.
  • A digital asset list: email, cloud storage, crypto wallets, domain names.
  • A note telling your executor, attorney and guardian who they are and where the originals live.

Keep signed originals with your solicitor or in a fireproof safe, never a digital-only copy.

How do you build an estate plan without redoing work?

Sequence matters. Do these out of order and you’ll find yourself re-signing documents within twelve months.

  1. Build your asset and liability register first. List property, superannuation, shares, business interests, trusts, debts, and digital assets before you draft anything. You can’t structure a Will sensibly until you know what it needs to cover.
  2. Choose your decision makers with real criteria, not just the eldest child or closest sibling. Pick someone financially literate, geographically available, and willing to act, and name a backup for every role.
  3. Draft and sign in the correct order, with proper witnessing. A Will signed before your asset register reveals a trust or business interest often needs redrafting.
  4. Lock in super and insurance nominations after legal advice, particularly if you have a blended family or a self-managed super fund, where a straightforward binding nomination can produce an unintended result.
  5. Store originals securely and write a one-page access note for your executor: where documents are, who your solicitor is, and which accounts exist. Practitioners consistently flag this as the single easiest way to prevent administration delays.

Each step depends on the one before it. Skip the asset register and you’ll be redrafting the Will six months later when the family trust deed surfaces.

What does each core estate document actually do?

Will. A Will controls anything owned in your sole name at death: property, personal belongings, bank accounts, and shares not held in a trust. It does not automatically control jointly-owned property (which usually passes to the surviving owner) or superannuation, which sits outside your estate unless your nomination directs it there. Beneficiaries and their spouses generally cannot witness your Will, and any changes made by scribbling on the original or attaching a note are almost always ineffective. If you want to change something, execute a new Will or a properly witnessed codicil.

Enduring power of attorney. An EPA takes effect the moment you lose capacity (or immediately, if you choose) and lets your attorney manage bank accounts, property, and legal matters. It ends automatically at death — your executor takes over from that point under the Will, not your attorney. Confusing these two roles is one of the most common misunderstandings families run into after a death.

Enduring guardian / advance care directive. This covers medical treatment and lifestyle decisions, not money. You need both an EPA and a guardian appointment; one does not substitute for the other.

Superannuation nominations. A binding nomination legally directs your fund; a non-binding one is merely a guide the trustee can override. Binding nominations may expire periodically unless your fund’s deed says otherwise, so an unchecked nomination is often a lapsed one.

Statistic callout: Every state sets its own witnessing and execution rules for Wills, EPAs and guardianship documents — under NSW’s Succession Act 2006, this includes formal writing, signature, and witnessing requirements. Get this wrong and the document can be challenged or ruled invalid entirely.

When do you need trusts, not just a Will?

Templates work for straightforward estates. They tend to fail once you add complexity, and DIY will kits routinely miss the structures that blended families and business owners actually need.

  • Testamentary trusts protect minor beneficiaries and can shield inheritances from a beneficiary’s divorce or creditors.
  • Family company succession needs an appointor substitution clause in the trust deed, not just a Will clause; failing to nominate a successor appointor is a frequent cause of frozen trust administration after death.
  • SMSFs need a solicitor and accountant working together, since fund deeds and binding nominations interact with trust law in ways a generic Will can’t fix.
  • Blended families face the highest risk of ambiguity, which is exactly the scenario that tends to end in a family provision claim later.

Pro Tip: If your family company, trust, and Will were drafted by three different people at three different times, get a solicitor to review all three together. Mismatched appointor clauses are invisible until someone tries to act on them.

What tax traps catch families off guard?

Superannuation death benefits paid to a spouse or minor child are usually tax-free, but paid to an independent adult child, they often attract tax that a straightforward Will can’t avoid, purely because of how the fund’s dependency test applies.

  • Check who counts as a tax dependant under super law before locking in a nomination.
  • Capital gains tax timing around estate assets carries real traps: the main residence exemption window and asset valuation timing at date of death both affect what beneficiaries eventually pay.
  • Talk to an accountant before finalising any trust or company changes tied to the estate. Coordinating your solicitor and accountant before signing avoids mismatches that are expensive to unwind later.

How do you organise digital assets and passwords?

Digital assets need a plan of their own: crypto wallet keys, email accounts, cloud storage, domain names, and loyalty points all need to be listed somewhere your executor can find, but nowhere a stranger could exploit.

  • Use a password manager with an emergency access feature, or a secure digital vault built for estate planning designed for this exact handover.
  • Keep the master list separate from the signed legal originals, which should sit with your solicitor or in a fireproof safe.
  • Tell your executor where both the digital list and the physical originals are, in writing, now, not in a note buried in a drawer.

What should an executor actually do, in order?

Executors consistently underestimate how long this takes. A realistic timeline:

  1. Immediately — secure the property and bank accounts, locate the original Will, and notify banks and the super fund of the death.
  2. 0 to 3 months — value the estate’s assets and debts, pay urgent bills, and apply for probate if the estate needs it.
  3. 3 to 12 months — lodge the final tax return, distribute assets to beneficiaries, and close out remaining accounts.

Delays are normal, not a sign something has gone wrong. Banks alone can take weeks to process a death notification, and probate itself often runs several months in a busy court list.

What mistakes cause the most estate disputes?

Three errors show up again and again in contested matters:

  • Lapsed super nominations. A binding nomination made five years ago has often already expired, silently reverting the fund to a non-binding default.
  • Bad witnessing. A Will witnessed by a beneficiary, or “updated” by crossing out a name and initialling it, risks being thrown out entirely.
  • Uncoordinated structures. A Will that ignores the family trust or company appointor clause creates exactly the kind of gap litigation over estates tends to exploit, particularly when the drafter had no professional indemnity cover to fall back on.

What’s a realistic 30 and 90-day plan?

First 30 days:

  1. Assemble ID, account details, insurance policies, and deeds into one folder.
  2. Choose your executor, attorney, and guardian, with a backup for each.
  3. Sign your Will, EPA, and advance care directive if your estate is straightforward.
  4. Update your super nomination and confirm it’s binding, not just on file.

Next 60 days (to day 90):

  1. Meet a solicitor and accountant together if you have a trust, company, or SMSF.
  2. Update trust and company appointor clauses to match your Will.
  3. Finalise testamentary trust wording if minor beneficiaries or asset protection apply.
  4. Confirm document storage and hand your executor the one-page access note.

Cost stops a lot of people with a legitimate contested estate claims from acting on it. Simons George Legal offers No Win, No Fee arrangements for eligible cases, including many family provision claims and contested will matters, so a genuine claim isn’t shelved because of upfront legal fees.

Eligibility gets assessed during a free initial consultation, where the firm looks at the merits of your matter and whether it fits a No Win, No Fee arrangement. That removes the cost barrier at the exact point most people hesitate. If you think you have a claim worth pursuing, book a free case assessment and find out where you stand before deciding anything.

No Win, No Fee arrangements are subject to case eligibility and a written costs agreement. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

Funding Your Legal Matter — No Win, No Fee — overview diagram

Why templates fail more often than people expect

Most estate planning advice treats a Will as the whole job. It isn’t. The families that end up in dispute rarely lost because of a poorly worded Will clause. They lost because the super nomination had lapsed, the trust deed named nobody as successor appointor, or the EPA and the Will contradicted each other about who was in charge and when.

Why templates fail more often than people expect — overview diagram

I’ve seen the same pattern surface repeatedly: someone does the sensible thing and downloads a template, fills it in carefully, gets it witnessed properly, and still leaves a gap that only shows up after they’ve died, when nobody can ask them what they meant. Templates are built for the estate that doesn’t exist, the one with no super, no trust, no blended family, and no business interest. Most real estates have at least one of those.

That’s the case for treating this as a checklist with a deadline, not a someday project. A complimentary 30-minute consultation is offered for exactly this reason, to work out quickly whether your estate is simple enough for the core four documents or complex enough to need a proper structural review.

— George

Where to go for more detail

For plain-English guidance on the four core documents, Moneysmart is the best starting point. State Public Trustee offices and STEP Australia cover professional standards in more depth, and Simons George Legal’s estate administration checklist walks executors through the practical side.

Get your estate plan drafted properly

Wills, enduring powers of attorney, and advance care directives are drafted for individuals, families, and business owners, with particular depth in blended-family structuring, testamentary trusts, and farm and business succession, exactly the areas where a downloaded template tends to fall apart. If your estate involves a trust, a company, an SMSF, or a second family, that’s specialist territory, not a DIY afternoon.

Simons George Legal

New clients get a complimentary 30-minute consultation to work out what your estate actually needs before you pay for anything. If you’re ready to get your Will properly drafted or reviewed, start with Simons George Legal’s Will and estate planning service and book that first conversation.

This article is general information, not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer. Consult a qualified legal professional about your own circumstances before acting on anything here.

Sources

FAQ

What documents do I need to prepare for estate planning in Australia?

You need a valid Will, an enduring power of attorney, an enduring guardian or advance care directive, and an up-to-date super binding nomination, plus a one-page asset and liability register to support them.

What are the steps in the estate planning process?

Build an asset register, choose your decision makers, draft and sign your documents with correct witnessing, lock in super and insurance nominations, store originals securely, brief your executor, and review the whole plan every three to five years.

What should an executor avoid doing?

Don’t distribute assets before probate is granted and debts are settled, don’t ignore lapsed super nominations, and don’t act on an informally amended Will without getting it checked by a solicitor first.

What assets should I include on my asset list for estate planning?

List property, superannuation, shares, business and trust interests, bank accounts, insurance policies, debts, and digital assets such as crypto wallets, domains, and cloud accounts.

When should I use a solicitor instead of a DIY will kit?

DIY kits can suit very simple estates, but blended families, business owners, and anyone with a trust or SMSF should use a solicitor, since templates routinely miss the structures these situations need.

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