Wills & Estate Lawyer Burpengary East

An outdated guardianship clause doesn't invalidate the rest of your will, but it's a clear sign the document hasn't been reviewed in a while, and other parts — the executor, how assets are distributed — are often out of date too. It's worth treating as a prompt for a full review, not just deleting one clause.

Under the Succession Act 1981 (Qld), if there's a surviving spouse and no children, the spouse generally takes the whole estate. Without a spouse or children, the estate passes outward to parents, then siblings, then nieces and nephews — which may be very different from who you'd actually choose. A will lets you decide this directly.

It changes what your estate is actually worth and how straightforward dividing it can be — an unmortgaged house is a cleaner asset to leave than one with debt attached. It's a good reason to revisit distribution strategy, particularly if you're leaving the property to more than one person.

Whenever a major life event happens — children reaching adulthood, a mortgage being paid off, a change in health, a business starting or ending — or at minimum every five years even if nothing obvious has changed. Burpengary East's settled, established households are exactly the profile most likely to have a will that's technically valid but practically out of date.

No — a will can only be altered through a formal codicil or a new will, executed with the same signing formalities as the original under section 10 of the Succession Act 1981 (Qld). Handwritten changes on an existing document are generally not effective and can create real doubt about what you intended.

Often less, since much of the groundwork is already there, but it depends on how much has actually changed. We quote the full fee up front after a free, confidential first consultation — ask us to confirm current pricing when you call.