The law for who inherits a person’s property when they die is antiquated and out of date so it will see a major shake-up, after new recommendations from Te Aka Matua o Te Ture, the NZ Law Commission.
The law commission has spent two years reviewing the inheritance laws, many of which are more than 70 years old.
Commission principal legal and policy adviser John-Luke Day has analysed some of the most controversial recommendations and says the issue that received the most attention was on adult children who were financially independent and whether they should be able to claim against a deceased parent's estate when the parent didn’t provide for them in their will.
Day said some people supported the existing law, which allows those children to claim even if they are financially secure.
“But some people think the deceased testamentary wishes should be respected.”
Day said that they recommended two options for the government, the first to keep the current law allowing adult children to claim against the deceased parent’s estate.
The other option posed to the government was to consider an age limit of over 25 couldn’t claim and only children under 25 or who were disabled would be able to make a case of claiming against the estate.
Day said the laws were drafted many years ago and that families today look quite different from the way Pākehā law viewed them more than two decades ago.
“So one of the real challenges in trying to create rules to govern this area is to provide flexibility to recognise the diversity in our families and different ways of thinking while trying to be clear at the same time.”
“Another challenge is to look at the current law from a Pakēha perspective and try to provide for different viewpoints like a te ao Māori perspective as well.”