Category Wills & Estate Planning

This article was written by Grace Blake Solicitor and Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

Each year the Queensland Public Trustee runs Wills Week to encourage Queenslanders to stop and think about their will. This year’s Wills Week ran from 7 to 13 September under the theme “Life changes, so should your Will”. A will is not a document you sign once and forget.

The Public Trustee’s latest research found that fewer than half of Queenslanders aged between 40 and 60 have a will. Among Queenslanders over 65 who do have one, around one in three have never updated it. An out-of-date will could leave out the people who matter most to you now, or name an executor who can no longer act.

This article walks through the moments in life when your will deserves a fresh look.

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This article was written by Grace Blake Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.

Most of us assume we will always be able to speak for ourselves when it comes to medical treatment. Illness, injury or an accident can change that in an instant. An advance health directive is one of the most practical documents you can put in place to make sure your wishes are respected, even if you lose the ability to communicate them yourself.

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This article was written by Grace Blake Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.

Most people know they should have a will. Far fewer have thought about who would pay the mortgage, deal with the bank or speak to a hospital if they were suddenly unable to do so themselves. A will only operates after death. A power of attorney deals with the time before death, when you are alive but cannot, or would prefer not to, act for yourself.

This article explains in general terms how powers of attorney work in Queensland. It covers the two types of power of attorney, when your attorney’s authority may start, whether the document needs to be registered, who you can appoint, and what an attorney can and must do.

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This article was written by Grace Blake Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.

As society becomes increasingly digital, estate planning needs to evolve with it.

A modern estate can extend far beyond the traditional assets we think about when preparing a Will. Today, a person’s financial and personal affairs may include online share trading accounts, cryptocurrency, digital bank accounts, cloud-stored photographs and documents, social media accounts, online businesses, intellectual property and valuable digital records.

But what happens to those assets when you die?

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This article was written by Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

Our earlier piece looked at Hall v Hall [2026] QSC 134, where a handwritten note left by a woman shortly before her death was upheld by the Supreme Court as a valid informal will. A case like that can leave people with a tempting thought: if a scribbled note on the couch can do the job, why bother with a formal will at all?

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