Wills in Victoria in 2026: Why the Document You Wrote Years Ago May No Longer Do the Job

Crownmark Lawyers | Wills & Estate Planning

Most people treat a Will as a task that is done once and then filed away. You sign it, you put it somewhere safe, and you assume the question is settled. The difficulty is that a Will is not a static document. It interacts with the law as it stands when you die, with the assets you actually hold at that point, and with the family circumstances of the moment, none of which look the way they did when you signed. In 2026, several of those moving parts have shifted in ways that make an old Will, or no Will at all, more expensive and more uncertain than people expect.

This article sets out what has changed, what it means if you have a Will sitting in a drawer, and where the choice of who prepares it starts to matter.

The first shift is cost. Since late 2024, the fees charged to administer an estate in Victoria have risen sharply, and they now scale with the value of what you leave behind. The second is structure. The way an estate is distributed when there is no valid Will is set by a formula in legislation, not by what the family believes the deceased would have wanted, and that formula rarely matches anyone's actual intentions. The third is the quiet erosion that affects every Will over time, where marriage, separation, a new child, a property purchase, or a death in the family can change or invalidate provisions the Will-maker assumed were secure.

Here is what that means if you have never made a Will, if you made one some years ago, or if you are an executor about to administer an estate.

What Has Changed: The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Probate Fees Now Scale With the Estate

From 18 November 2024, Victoria replaced its flat probate fee with a tiered structure based on the value of the estate. The practical effect is significant. Smaller estates pay less than before, and in the lowest bracket the previous fee was removed altogether. Larger estates pay considerably more, with the increase reaching several hundred per cent at the top of the scale and the largest estates now attracting fees in the tens of thousands of dollars where they once paid a small fraction of that.

This matters for two reasons. First, the executor is personally responsible for the probate application fee, and estate assets are often locked until the grant is made. That can leave an executor needing to fund a substantial fee out of their own pocket while waiting for the estate to be released, at exactly the moment they are dealing with the death of someone close to them. Second, the way an estate is structured and valued now has a direct effect on what it costs to administer. How assets are held, what passes outside the estate, and how the estate is presented to the Probate Office are no longer purely technical questions. They have a price attached.

IMPORTANT: These fees are charged when an executor applies for a grant of probate, or an administrator applies for letters of administration. They are separate from any legal fees. They are set by regulation and reviewed periodically, so the figure that applies is the one current at the date of the application, not the date the Will was made.

What Happens If There Is No Valid Will

If you die without a valid Will in Victoria, you are said to have died intestate, and your estate is distributed according to a formula set out in the Administration and Probate Act 1958. That formula does not ask what you would have wanted. It applies a fixed order of priority through spouse or domestic partner, then children, then more distant relatives, and only if none of those exist does the estate pass to the State.

The problem is not that the formula is unreasonable in the abstract. It is that it almost never matches a real family. A common example is a person with a current partner and children from an earlier relationship: the legislation splits the estate between them on a set formula, regardless of whether that reflects the deceased's wishes or the family's needs. Blended families, unmarried couples, estranged relatives, and dependants who fall outside the statutory categories are all situations where intestacy produces an outcome the deceased would not have chosen and cannot correct.

Beyond the distribution itself, dying without a Will means you do not choose who administers your estate, you do not appoint a guardian for your children, and the process of applying for letters of administration is often slower and more contested than a clean grant of probate. A Will is the mechanism that lets you decide these questions in advance rather than leaving them to a formula and a court.

If You Made a Will Some Years Ago

A Will that was valid and sensible when you signed it can quietly stop reflecting your circumstances. Several life events have a direct legal effect. In Victoria, marriage generally revokes an existing Will unless the Will was made in contemplation of that marriage, which means a Will signed before a wedding may no longer operate the way the Will-maker assumes. Divorce affects gifts and appointments in favour of a former spouse. The arrival of children or grandchildren, the purchase or sale of a significant asset, the death of a named executor or beneficiary, and the breakdown of a relationship are all events that can leave a Will partially ineffective or out of step with what the person now wants.

There is also the question of assets that do not pass under the Will at all. Superannuation, life insurance, and jointly owned property are often dealt with outside the estate, through binding death benefit nominations or rights of survivorship. A Will that carefully divides "everything I own" may be silent on the assets that make up the largest part of someone's wealth, simply because those assets never formed part of the estate. Reviewing how the Will and these external arrangements fit together is one of the more common gaps a review picks up.

The practical point is that a Will should be reviewed when life changes, not left until it is needed. A document that is out of date is discovered to be out of date at the worst possible time, by the people left to deal with it.

If You Are an Executor

Being named as an executor is not an honorary title. It carries real obligations and real personal exposure. The executor is responsible for applying for probate, identifying and protecting the assets, paying debts and liabilities, and distributing the estate correctly to the right people in the right shares. Errors in that process are not always forgiving. An executor who distributes an estate incorrectly, or who distributes it before a potential claim is resolved, can be personally liable for the shortfall.

The rise in probate fees has added a further wrinkle, since the executor may need to fund the application before estate assets are accessible. And where a Will is unclear, where an asset has been left out, or where a family provision claim is foreshadowed, the executor is the person who has to navigate it. Getting advice early in the administration, rather than after a step has been taken that cannot be undone, is the difference between a smooth estate and a contested one.

A Will Kit or a Lawyer? What the Difference Means

For a genuinely simple situation, a single person with straightforward assets and clear, uncomplicated wishes, a well-drafted standard Will may cover what is needed, and the cost of preparing one properly is modest.

The difficulty is that people are not always well placed to judge whether their own situation is simple. A Will kit cannot tell you that your marriage revoked your last Will, that your superannuation will not pass under the document you just signed, that the way you have worded a gift creates ambiguity, or that the structure of your estate exposes a beneficiary to a claim or a tax outcome you did not intend. Informal and home-made Wills are also a recurring source of disputes, where a document fails the formal requirements and the family is left arguing about whether the court should accept it at all. Those arguments are slow, expensive, and avoidable.

A solicitor preparing a Will is doing more than filling in a form. They are checking testamentary capacity, confirming the document meets the formal signing and witnessing requirements, making sure it deals with the assets that actually pass under the estate, and considering whether the structure exposes the estate to a family provision claim or an avoidable cost. For a straightforward estate, that scope may never be tested. In a blended family, a second marriage, a business interest, a vulnerable beneficiary, or an estate large enough to attract the higher probate fees, it is the difference between a document that works and one that generates a dispute.

When deciding who should prepare your Will, a few things are worth looking for regardless of who you choose: a clear fee quoted before you engage, so there are no surprises; a practitioner who asks about your full circumstances rather than handing you a template; and someone who can advise on how your Will, your superannuation, and your jointly held assets fit together as a whole, not just the document in isolation.

What This Means For Your Situation

A Will is not made narrower or simpler by being left alone. It is made riskier. Rising administration costs, a statutory formula that ignores intentions, and the ordinary drift of life events all mean that the gap between what a Will says and what a family needs tends to widen over time, and the cost of that gap is borne by the people left behind. Having a Will prepared properly, and reviewed when circumstances change, by someone who can advise on more than the wording, remains a modest step that heads off expensive and painful problems.

Crownmark Lawyers prepares Wills and advises on estate planning, probate, and estate administration for individuals, families, and executors across Victoria, on a fixed fee with the principal handling each file. If you have never made a Will, have one that may be out of date, or have been named as an executor and are unsure where to start, you are welcome to get in touch.

Harjit Mahindroo

Managing Partner

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Phone: 1800 884 751

From Overseas: +61 3 8595 4338

Email: info@crownmarklaw.com.au

This article is general information about Victorian wills and estates law and is current as at June 2026. It is not legal advice and does not take account of your particular circumstances. The probate fee changes described commenced on 18 November 2024 and are reviewed periodically, and intestacy is governed by the Administration and Probate Act 1958 (Vic). For advice on your situation, please contact us or another qualified Australian legal practitioner.