Using New Zealand EPAs in Australia — the document that stops at the border

SENIORS LAW  ·  ESTATE PLANNING  ·  PROPERTY

Using New Zealand EPAs in Australia — the document that stops at the border

‍Published by Ross Holmes Virtual Lawyers Limited  ·  25 August 2026 ‍

Many New Zealand families now hold assets on both sides of the Tasman. If you own a Gold Coast unit, a Melbourne apartment or Australian shares, you probably assume your New Zealand enduring power of attorney covers them. It does not. Of the eight Australian States and Territories, only two offer any route by which a New Zealand EPA can be used at all — and the gap runs the other way too. This article explains what happens in each direction, and the point that catches out even careful families: a document can be perfectly valid yet completely unusable.

Key points

•    A New Zealand EPA has no automatic effect in any Australian State or Territory.

•    Only Western Australia (tribunal order) and Tasmania (registration) offer any statutory route.

•    Queensland does not accept New Zealand EPAs — a widely believed myth.

•    New Zealand does not recognise Australian EPAs either. There is no gateway coming this way.

•    The fix is a locally made document in each Australian State in which you own something, made while you still can.

Why an enduring power of attorney exists at all

An ordinary power of attorney is a form of agency: your attorney can only do what you could authorise, so you must remain able to instruct them and take the authority back. When you lose capacity, that foundation collapses, and the authority ends by operation of law — settled in Drew v Nunn in 1879 and never doubted since. The irony is obvious. Incapacity is the very event for which you want a substitute decision-maker, and the very event that destroys an ordinary power of attorney. Every common-law country eventually legislated an exception; in New Zealand it is Part 9 of the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988, where section 96 keeps an enduring power alive through the donor’s loss of capacity.

That exception operates only as New Zealand law. A treaty exists to make these documents portable — the Hague Convention on the International Protection of Adults (2000) — but its parties are almost entirely European, and neither New Zealand nor Australia has signed up. So the moment your EPA crosses the Tasman to Australia, it leaves the Act that gives it life. The question is never "is my EPA valid?" It is "will this State act on it — and who decides?"

Topic one: your New Zealand EPA and your Australian assets

Margaret’s Tuesday morning

Margaret, 78, is widowed and lives in Tauranga. Her son Mark is in Sydney, her daughter Sarah in Brisbane. She did everything right: a New Zealand property EPA appointing both children, and a welfare EPA appointing Sarah with Mark as her successor, both on the prescribed forms and signed in front of a New Zealand lawyer. Alongside her Tauranga home she owns a Gold Coast unit worth about NZ$740,000, Perth mining shares worth NZ$180,000, an inherited Hobart cottage worth NZ$410,000, and a NZ$95,000 Sydney term deposit.

At 8.42 on a Tuesday morning, Sarah rings. Margaret has had a stroke, the rest home needs decisions, and the Gold Coast unit must be sold to pay for care. "We’ve got the EPA — we’re fine… aren’t we?"

1. The Gold Coast unit (Queensland) — no

Many New Zealanders believe Queensland accepts New Zealand EPAs. It does not. Section 34 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1998 (Qld) recognises an enduring power made in "another State" — read with the Queensland Acts Interpretation Act, that means another Australian State or Territory, not another country. Neither the Queensland titles registry nor the Queensland bank can act on Margaret’s EPA property. Because she has already lost capacity, the only remaining route is to apply to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for an administration order. ‍

2. The Perth mining shares (Western Australia) — only with extra steps

‍Western Australia is the one jurisdiction whose recognition provision was drafted wide enough to reach an overseas document. Section 104A of the Guardianship and Administration Act 1990 (WA) lets the holder of a power created under the laws of "another State, Territory or country" apply to the State Administrative Tribunal for an order recognising it. That is a real gateway — but it is a finding, not a formality. The Tribunal must be satisfied the New Zealand instrument corresponds sufficiently to a Western Australian enduring power, and afterwards the share registry will want to see the order itself, not just the EPA.

3. The Hobart cottage (Tasmania) — only with extra steps

Tasmania is the pleasant surprise. It requires every power of attorney to be registered with the Recorder of Titles before it operates. Section 43 of the Powers of Attorney Act 2000 (Tas) allows registration of an instrument not executed under Tasmanian law, provided it was executed in accordance with the law of the place where it was signed — wording that fits a New Zealand EPA exactly. Section 44 then permits a New Zealand lawyer to certify the valid execution as evidence on registration, though not that Margaret had capacity.

4. The Sydney term deposit (New South Wales) — no, twice over

The Sydney bank refuses the EPA, and it is right to do so: section 25 of the Powers of Attorney Act 2003 (NSW) recognises only interstate enduring powers. Mark then asks the sensible follow-up — can the New Zealand Family Court appoint someone now, and will Sydney accept that? No. The reciprocal provisions in Part 8 of the PPPR Act contemplate foreign appointments reaching into New Zealand, not New Zealand appointments reaching out. The family needs a financial management order from the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Eight regimes, one document

‍None of this is arbitrary. Australia is a federation and each jurisdiction has its own legislation. New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania keep financial and welfare authority in separate documents under separate Acts; Victoria and Queensland combine them in a single EPA, though Victoria carves medical treatment out again; the ACT and Northern Territory use one omnibus instrument, which the Northern Territory calls an advance personal plan. One New Zealand document was never going to fit all eight.

The welfare EPA travels worst of all

Everything above concerns money and property. Margaret’s welfare EPA — the one that matters most on the morning of the stroke — fares worse. A New Zealand personal care and welfare EPA has no effect in any Australian State. The welfare-side recognition provisions are confined to Australian instruments, and the only conceivable route is again Western Australia, where section 110O mirrors section 104A. Even that is a tribunal finding, not a right.

This matters because of the most common trans-Tasman pattern of all: the ageing parent who moves to Australia to live near the children. In that situation, care and accommodation decisions come up first, not the bank account, and each State has its own welfare instrument — enduring guardianship in New South Wales, advance care directives in South Australia and Queensland. There is a partial safety net: Australia’s default statutory hierarchies usually let a spouse or adult child consent to treatment without any document. But they do not reach accommodation or lifestyle decisions, which are exactly what a relocated parent’s family needs to decide. ‍

Topic two: the Australian EPA coming the other way

‍The next question — the one we are asked most often by families with an Australian parent — is whether the problem runs in reverse. If your father made an enduring power of attorney in Queensland and owns a bach in Whangamatā, does his Australian document work here? The answer is worse than you might hope. New Zealand has no equivalent of Western Australia’s section 104A and no equivalent of Tasmania’s registration route. There is no gateway coming this way at all.

‍Bruce’s bach

Bruce, 76, grew up in Te Awamutu and has lived in Brisbane for thirty years. He still owns the family bach at Whangamatā, worth about NZ$820,000, and a NZ$150,000 term deposit with a New Zealand bank. In 2021, he made a Queensland enduring power of attorney appointing his daughter Kate to handle both financial and personal matters, and was told it covered everything. Bruce then had a fall and no longer has capacity. Kate needs to renew the bach insurance, pay the rates and probably sell. The bank and the council are polite and immovable.

Why there is no New Zealand gateway

Part 9 of the PPPR Act gives enduring effect to an instrument made in the prescribed New Zealand form and witnessed under section 94A. It says nothing about foreign instruments, and there is no separate recognition provision anywhere in the Act. The Queensland statute that keeps Bruce’s power alive through incapacity is Queensland law, and it has no force here.

So while Bruce still had capacity, his Queensland document could operate here only as an ordinary common-law agency — and whether any bank or registry accepted it was a matter for that institution, not a legal right. The instant he lost capacity that agency died, for the reason set out at the top of this article. The document survives on paper. The authority does not.

The one route that does exist — and what it actually covers

‍There is a reciprocal scheme in New Zealand law, but it recognises court and tribunal appointments, not enduring powers of attorney. Part 8 of the PPPR Act (sections 90 to 93) deals with a person placed under a protective appointment in a prescribed country, and Australia was prescribed by an Order in Council made in 1989. Where an Australian tribunal has appointed an administrator, section 93 provides for that order to be resealed here, and section 91 gives Public Trust powers over New Zealand property in the meantime.

Note precisely what that requires: a QCAT or NCAT order, not a Queensland EPA. Bruce’s document is not resealable, because it is not a court order. So Kate has two options — apply to the New Zealand Family Court for a property manager under section 31, and a welfare guardian under section 12 if care decisions arise here; or, if QCAT has already appointed her administrator in Queensland, look at resealing that order under Part 8. ‍

What Bruce should have done

‍Bruce should have made a New Zealand EPA while he was still capable — the mirror image of the advice we give New Zealanders with Australian assets. One wrinkle is worth planning around: a New Zealand EPA must be witnessed by a New Zealand-practising lawyer, a qualifying legal executive or an authorised officer of a trustee corporation, so an Australian solicitor cannot do it. And New Zealand EPAs are excluded from electronic signing by the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 — paper, wet ink, in person, with no remote workaround. For an Australian-based client, that usually means signing on a trip home.

The one thing most people get wrong

‍A document being legally recognised and a document being accepted are two entirely different things — and it is the second that decides whether your family can pay the bills.

Even in Western Australia and Tasmania, where the law provides a route, banks and land titles offices routinely decline to act on an instrument executed outside their own State. This is not obstruction: front-line staff cannot assess an unfamiliar overseas form, and their compliance rules tell them not to try. "My lawyer says it should be recognised" is a conversation you end up having with an institution that has already said no.

The reliable course is a locally compliant instrument in each State you own something — which is also, by a wide margin, the cheapest. Margaret’s family now faces tribunal processes in Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales plus a Tasmanian registration: a local lawyer, medical evidence and filing fees in each, running to several thousand dollars per jurisdiction and several months. Four local documents, made in advance, would have cost a small fraction of that.

Signing an Australian EPA document in New Zealand

Margaret’s brother Ian, also in Tauranga, owns property in three States in Australia and would rather not fly to each of them to sign. In New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, a New Zealand lawyer can witness the local instrument. In Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT, only a New Zealand notary public qualifies (or an Australian consular officer for Western Australia and the ACT). In Victoria and the Northern Territory there is no New Zealand route — the witness must be locally authorised. Video-link witnessing does not bridge the gap, because it is the witness’s qualification that governs, not where the signer sits.

What you can do — and where we can help

•    Write down where your assets actually are. Not "some money in Australia" — the State, the institution and roughly what it is worth. That list drives everything else.

•    Make a local enduring document in each State where you own something, financial and separately welfare, while capacity is unquestioned. After that, the only door is a tribunal. Register where registration is required.

•    Do not forget the welfare side. It travels worst, and it is what comes up first when a parent is unwell.

•    Coming the other way — make a New Zealand EPA. If you live in Australia and own anything here, your Australian document will not carry you through incapacity in New Zealand.

•    Review whenever you buy or sell across the Tasman. A new apartment in a new State means a new document in that State.

RHL prepares New Zealand enduring powers of attorney for property and welfare with the section 94A witnessing and certificate the law requires, at $300 per person or $600 a couple for each type, or $600 and $1,200 for both types together, with witnessing at our Albany office included. We also review cross-border arrangements, and work alongside Australian practitioners in the Australian State where your assets are located.

If you are reviewing your wider estate plan at the same time, our articles on the five defects we see most often in DIY will forms and the assets your will cannot reach are the natural companions to this one.

Questions we are asked

My mother has a New Zealand EPA and a unit on the Gold Coast. Does it work?

No — Queensland’s recognition provision reaches enduring powers made in another Australian State only. This is the most common misunderstanding we encounter. If she still has capacity, make a Queensland EPA on the approved form now. If she does not, the route is a QCAT administration order.

Can I just get my New Zealand EPA certified for Australia?

‍No. Certification does not create recognition. The obstacle is not the authenticity of the document — it is that the receiving State’s statute does not reach an overseas instrument at all.

My father lives in Sydney and made his EPA there. He owns a bach here. Is that enough?

No. New Zealand has no provision recognising a foreign enduring power of attorney. While he has capacity, some institutions may accept it as an ordinary agency, entirely at their discretion; once he loses capacity, that authority ends. He should make a New Zealand EPA now.

Can my Australian solicitor witness my New Zealand EPA?

‍Not unless they also hold a current New Zealand practising certificate. Section 94A requires a New Zealand lawyer, a qualifying legal executive, or an authorised officer of a trustee corporation — and because New Zealand EPAs cannot be signed electronically, a video link does not help either.

If my mother has a New Zealand welfare EPA, will Australian doctors listen to my sister?

‍For medical treatment, probably yes in practice — every Australian jurisdiction has a default hierarchy letting a spouse or adult child consent without any document. For where she lives and whether she moves into care, no. Those need a locally made welfare instrument, or a guardianship order from that State’s tribunal.

Where to get information

•    Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988, section 94A — how a New Zealand enduring power of attorney is created and witnessed

•    Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988 — including Part 8 (reciprocal provisions) and Part 9 (enduring powers of attorney)

•    Ministry of Justice — powers to make decisions — the prescribed New Zealand forms and the Family Court process

•    Te Tari Kaumātua | Office for Seniors — plain-language guidance on enduring powers of attorney

•  Office of the Public Advocate, Western Australia — enduring powers of attorney and State Administrative Tribunal recognition

•    Land Tasmania — power of attorney forms and registration — the Recorder of Titles registration route

‍ ‍

If you own anything on the other side of the Tasman, have your EPAs checked before they are needed.

RHL reviews cross-border enduring power of attorney arrangements, prepares New Zealand EPAs with the certificate required by law, and coordinates locally compliant documents in the Australian State where your assets are located. Call +64 9 415 0099 or email reception@rossholmes.co.nz.

Disclaimer

This article is general information only and is not legal advice. Your situation is unique; please obtain specific advice before acting. The Australian State and Territory provisions summarised here change from time to time, and recognition in practice turns on the specific instrument and the institution or registry involved. The current law in the destination jurisdiction must be confirmed. Fees stated are current at the date of publication.

About the author. Ross Holmes is the Managing Director of Ross Holmes Virtual Lawyers Limited, an Auckland-based virtual law firm, and a conributing author to LexisNexis Law of Trusts (NZ). He is presenting a paper "Capacity Across the Tasman" to the Legalwise Cross-Border Estates seminar in September 2026. rossholmeslawyers.com  ·  Contact us