Methodology

What this site is

EstatePlanning.co.nz is an educational and lead-routing site for New Zealand estate planning. We publish plain-English guides on family trusts, wills, enduring powers of attorney, probate, asset protection, and related topics, and we connect readers who want professional advice with our referral partner.

What this site is not

• A law firm. We do not give legal advice. Content on this site is general information only.
• A regulator or directory. Our content is not a substitute for the High Court, the Family Court, the New Zealand Law Society, Inland Revenue, or other official sources.
• A neutral marketplace. We refer enquiries to a single partner law firm (see "Referral economics" below).

Source-of-truth rule

Every quantitative or legal-fact claim on this site (court fees, statutory thresholds, legislation effective dates, IRD rules, partner fees) resolves to a primary-source citation in our sources registry. Build deploys fail if any referenced statistic is missing from the registry or is older than the freshness threshold for its category.

Preferred primary sources, in order:

1. Legislation hosted at legislation.govt.nz
2. Regulator publications: Ministry of Justice, Inland Revenue, New Zealand Law Society
3. Court-published fee schedules, rules of court, and practice notes
4. Partner-firm published fee schedules

Press releases, opinion pieces, and secondary commentary are not accepted as primary sources for quantitative claims.

Freshness rule

Non-legislation statistics (court fees, partner fees, IRD rules) are re-verified against the original publisher at least every 36 months. Legislation entries are re-verified on the same cadence — but because the underlying statute does not expire, age alone does not make the entry stale. The build fails if any statistic referenced on the live site is overdue.

Editorial standards

Content is reviewed against the primary statutes that govern New Zealand estate planning:

• Trusts Act 2019
• Wills Act 2007
• Property (Relationships) Act 1976
• Family Protection Act 1955
• Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988
• Administration Act 1969
• IRD Trust Disclosure Rules

We comply with the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 advertising rules (rules 11.1 and 11.4). Marketing copy on this site is gated by an automated audit script that blocks publication of self-laudatory or guarantee-style language.

Referral economics

EstatePlanning.co.nz is a referral platform. When you submit a consultation request, your information is forwarded to our partner law firm, SW Legal (Steindle Williams Legal Limited, NZBN 9429032337242), who will contact you directly. We may receive a referral fee from SW Legal for successful introductions. This fee:

• does not change the price you pay to the law firm,
• does not change the legal advice you receive, and
• is disclosed in our privacy policy and on the partners page.

We refer only to a single partner at this time. We do not operate a panel, an auction, or a paid-placement system.

Found something wrong?

If a citation looks off, a statute reference is out of date, or a partner-fee figure has changed, please write to info@estateplanning.co.nz with the page URL and the correction. We update the registry and rebuild the site.