Wills - costs - and mirror wills

Director / lawyer from Kiwilaw

Public Trust charges $280 for a simple will, $500 for more complicated wills.

For simple wills, I like the look of ewills.co.nz which produces online wills for $100, but I haven't seen their output yet. Until further notice, I'd be happy to look over the results without charge if people use them, if you email the results to me, just to know what they produce. (There are also other online providers - I think the cheapest I found was about $45 - the same offer applies - I'd be interested to see what they produce and to know whether they are user friendly, and I'll let you know without charge whether what they have produced is 'legally okay'.)

For a will from scratch I would charge between $150 and $700 depending on complications and whether you provide information to me efficiently e.g. by email rather than by personal interview. HOWEVER, I don't provide a will-storage service - you have to make your own arrangements for keeping the original will safe. ALSO, I don't spend time witnessing the will - I send it to you with instructions for you to arrange to sign in front of two adults who are not mentioned in the will.

Mirror wills - where spouses make wills that are identical except for reversing the will-maker and executor - shouldn't cost more than a single will (in my opinion). It takes 30 seconds to reverse those details. If someone tries to charge you twice as much, just do one will and then copy it out yourself, swapping the details.

The main value that lawyers add to the will-making process is advice about how to deal with tricky situations. If you don't have a tricky situation, you don't need a lawyer's will.