Yes. Creating your Will is free and updating it is free, for life. Nothing is charged while you are alive, unless you choose Willzee Smart for expert and legal help.

We automate the work that normally takes a lawyer several hours, so our costs stay low enough to give every New Zealander a free Will. Our income comes later, from a single fee for looking after your estate. That fee is what keeps us running now, so we are here for your family when it matters.

With Willzee Free, nothing while you’re alive. One fee is paid from your estate after you die, covering your Will, every update and the work of looking after your estate alongside your executor. It’s capped and set out in full in our Fees & Services. Small estates pay less: if your estate is worth $100,000 or less and doesn’t need probate, the fee is $2,000. If your executor chooses another provider, a lower release fee applies instead.

Want expert help? Willzee Smart Start is $240 once and covers you and your partner, with Smart Managed from $60 a quarter.

Your fee covers the standard work of winding up an estate: applying to the High Court for probate or letters of administration, preparing your executor’s affidavit, dealing with the Court and any requisitions it raises, collecting straightforward New Zealand assets, closing bank accounts and releasing funds on your executor’s instructions, and preparing a final summary for your beneficiaries. Your executor has someone to talk to throughout.

Most people never look at what dying costs until it happens. A lawyer charges for the work, so the bill is not known until it is done, and rates reach $400 to $600 an hour. Trustee companies charge a share of the estate itself and the law allows them up to 5% of its gross value. Willzee agrees its fee before you write a word: the greater of $5,800 or 1% of the estate value, capped at $30,000. On a $750,000 estate that is $7,500, where a trustee company charging the maximum would take $37,500.