The problem
The new online Probate system is extensive, it is pages and pages of questions and pre-determined answers. It asks a lot of questions that the lawyer has to answer on behalf of the clients, but then it doesn’t give you any sort of summary or downloadable document with all of those questions to put in front of the client. However the thing that makes it most difficult is that we cannot simply progress through and read all of the questions without completing all of the required parts. Plugging in false answers or false documents is risky, what if you forget one? The alternative is asking clients questions one at a time, which looks sloppy, and will do your head in.
I have prepared a Word document that consists of all of the questions, answers and documents prompts that you can possibly get when you are submitting an online Probate application as of July 2025. This document is 160 pages long and it took my 37 hours to copy and paste everything out of the Probate portal into the document.
THE CPD EVENT
We will be having a CPD in April 2026 where we will look at these non standard Probate applications, and what you can do about them. Hopefully some of the participants will bring us some real life examples that we can work through, but don’t worry I have some examples that we can work through too. We will look at the various options for dealing with a non standard Probate application under the online system, what matters count as “complex”, and how to deal with matters that you just know will be difficult.
The document
If you would like more information about the document that you will get with the papers for this CPD, there is a whole blog post just about that. Click on the button below.
NSW Estate Lawyers Facebook Group
Did you know about the free Facebook Group? This is a group for NSW Estate Lawyers to discuss things that are particular to practising Estate law in this State. Here are some examples of things we might discuss -
(1) Does anyone have a list of local lawyers for XYZ suburb so I can send out a letter enquiring if they hold a Will?
(2) Does anybody have better contact details for ABC bank?
(3) The online Probate system has asked me for further evidence about the relationship of the grandparents to the deceased, but they come from a country that doesn’t issue formal birth certificates or marriage certificates. What documents can I provide, what are others doing?
Of course more recently there is a lot of discussion about pragmatic issues with the new online system. We might also share the occasional post that only other lawyers who practice in this area will appreciate. The idea is to help and support each other, and share information that is helpful.
If you would like to join you can just search for “NSW Estate Lawyers” in groups on Facebook, please make sure that you answer the questions.