New Zealand death duties, wills and inheritance

 While writing an assignment for university about family inheritance I ended up with a list of notes that I had not used and wanted to use them for a blog so here is a little bit of the left overs, which will hopefully provide a little bit of information about death in New Zealand. I thought the information might be helpful and just as interesting.

In life and death the best sources of documentation for government officials about peoples wealth is when they become bankrupt or on death. Depending on the family structure and culture the distribution of property is different. The size of the actual property and the monetary value plays a part too. New Zealand was governed by the Imperial Wills act that had been used since colonisation in 1840. The legislation changed in 2007 when the Wills Act 2007 was adopted. The main changes were that the existing law could now be stated in plain English for people on the street to understand. The Testator’s Family Maintenance Act of 1900 written in New Zealand was copied by other nations such as Australia and Canada. This was replaced in 1906 under the Act of the same name in New Zealand. The same act was changed yet again to the Family Protection Act of 1908.

Wills are written documents that provide instructions top others about what people want their property and other goods they owned to be distributed after their death.  The will is viewed as a form of communication between the living and the dead. The will is a personal document that provides information about how someones possessions are disposed of and to whom. Through time the laws have changed since the beginning of colonisation in New Zealand. Once the will has been written and trustees nominated who are willing to perform their duties. They need to be granted official recognition through the Supreme Court, which is done through a document called a grant of probate. Once this has been passed by the registrar who makes all the checks to make sure the will is valid then the will is called a probate. The valuation of people’s estates was usually completed within three months of death, but there were occasions where the estate valuation was finalised in two years and sometimes within 30 years from death.

When the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 in New Zealand this meant that the country would inherit the statutes and common law already part of England. The Wills Act of 1837 was one of these statutes, which was not changed until the twenty first Century with the Wills Act of 2007. At the time until the Testator’s Family Maintenance Act in 1900 meant that the husband could leave the wife and children disinherited and destitute. Woman’s suffrage movement in New Zealand did seem to have an impact upon the countries legislation. This change was the Testator’s Family Maintenance Act of 1900, which was passed and would hopefully help women become secure once their husbands died. It had been thought the Testamentary freedom would work against women, where women might not be provided for and became an election issue. The Act meant if the deceased failed to provide for their spouse or children then the court could step forward and make sure the family would be provided for through the deceased estate. In the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century men were considered to have dependents and women did not. Women who were married had no paid work and were dependent on their husbands. It was not until 1911 when there was a widows pension. Other countries followed New Zealand’s lead like Australia and Britain. Today in New Zealand the various Acts like the Wills Act of 2007 includes people who are in de facto relationships of either gender. Since early 1900 the acts have changed in regards to wills and probates along with death duties being abolished later in the twentieth century.

Death duties are what the payment of duties on the estate of deceased people. Death duties in New Zealand began in the 1860s. It was placed upon documents where there would be a need for a stamp placed on them. This creates evidence that the stamp duty had been paid by the individual.  Depending on the value of the estate the death duties are compared at different rates especially during the different Act updates in 1885, 1909 and 1921. Death duties were used as a means of breaking up large amounts of wealth by distributing them. Death duties would later be abolished around 1993 in New Zealand.

Inheritance is one way of passing property and other assets down to a younger generation once the older generation had passed away. Inheritances can be provided through several purposes. They could be a symbol for family lineage, keeping property or other objects within the family and the final act of parents providing for their children. It is usually accepted that within most cultures inheritance is linked by blood ties, although legally it is limited to the relationship of the person. A significant amount of people who die leave assets and a large portion of people leave their family home, which usually is half of what they own. Within New Zealand family does take on different meanings when Maori or Pacific Islander cultures are included especially kinship. They are quite different from the Pakeha or while New Zealanders as they are otherwise known.

Sources

‘Early New Zealand Statutes’, Death Duties Act 1908, http://www.enzs.auckland.ac.nz/docs/1908/1908C038.pdf, accessed 31 August 2015.

‘New Zealand Probate Records’ Church of the Latter-Day Saints, 2014, https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/New_Zealand_Probate_Records, accessed, 7 September 2015.

‘Death Duty Registers’, Auckland Regional office fact sheet 9, 2009, http://archives.govt.nz/death-duty-registers, accessed 1 September 2015.

Dupuis, Ann ‘Housing, wealth and Inheritance: A theoretical and empirical explanation’, DPhils Thesis, University of Canterbury, 1997, pp. 1 – 389.

Galt, Margaret Nell ‘Wealth and income in New Zealand c. 1870 – c. 1939’, unpublished doctorate thesis in Philosophy in Economic History, University of Wellington, 1985, pp. 1 – 295.

Littlewood, Michael ‘The history of death duties and gift duty in New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of Taxation Law and Policy, vol. 18, 2012, pp. 66 – 103.

Peart, Nicola ‘New Zealand report on new developments in succession law’, Electronic Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 14, 2010, pp. 1 – 23.

Stroombergen, Adolf & Rose, Dennis ‘The role of inheritance’, Office of the Retirement Commissioner, Wellington, 1998, pp. 1 – 12.

Thorns, D. ‘Housing wealth and inheritance: the New Zealand experience’, Housing and Family Wealth, ed. Ray Forrest and Alan Murie, London, Routledge, 2008, pp. 8 – 35.