Estate & Asset Protection Planning
Your Complete Guide to Estate & Asset Protection Planning
Which plan do you need — will-based or trust-based? This guide explains both in plain English, works through real-life examples, busts the old wives' tales about trusts, and sets out the current care-cost rules — so you can make the decision with confidence.
Your wealth represents a lifetime of hard work. A good plan protects it from the four risks that catch New Zealand families unprepared. After three years, a partner is generally entitled to half the family home — even one you owned before the relationship. Around 28% of New Zealand marriages are remarriages, and blended families without the right plan are where inheritances most often go astray. Personal guarantees — to landlords, banks and suppliers — put your family home on the line if the business fails. In a typical year more than a thousand New Zealanders are bankrupted, most of whom never expected to be. If you're over 85, the odds of living in residential care are about one in five. Without planning, your assets above the exempt threshold must be spent on care before any subsidy applies — and the planning only works if it's done years in advance. After a death, probate is usually required for assets over $15,000 and currently takes 4 to 6 months — while estate assets are frozen. Wills can also be challenged by family members. Assets properly held in a trust avoid both. Every plan we design is a coordinated set of documents working together: your will, enduring powers of attorney for property and for personal care and welfare, advance health care directives, funeral directives, a list of your digital assets and devices, and a directory of important contacts. A trust-based plan adds the trust itself, a memorandum of wishes, deeds of loan and gift, running instructions and a minute book. The question this guide answers is which foundation you need.Why Estate & Asset Protection Planning Matters
Relationship claims
Business and creditor risk
Care costs in later life
Probate delays and will challenges
More than "who gets what"
Twenty seconds here tells you the shape of the choice — then open the accordions for the detail and the trade-offs. Both plans include the full coordinated document set — enduring powers of attorney, advance health care directives, funeral directives, digital assets and contacts. The accordions below give you the detail behind every row. Everything in the will-based plan, plus the structure that protects your assets during your lifetime: A trust is the only alternative to a will for structuring your estate plan — so these obligations are the price of the protection. For most families with a home to protect, it's a price worth paying once, properly.The Two Plans — What's in Each, and the Honest Pros and Cons
These are real patterns we see every year. The names are illustrative; the outcomes are not. Our free interactive planner asks about your family, assets and goals, and builds you a personalised starter report on the page — which plan looks right for you and why. It takes a few minutes, nothing is stored, and there's no obligation. If you're in your first relationship, your assets are relatively straightforward, and you have no significant business or asset protection concerns, a will-based plan is usually the right foundation. It's thorough — will, enduring powers of attorney, health care directives, digital assets and more — and it can be upgraded to a trust-based plan when your circumstances change: a business, a growing portfolio, a new relationship, or care-cost planning as you get older. Kim's story. Kim bought a home worth $600,000 while single, and decided against a trust. Her new partner Keith moved in; she later paid off the mortgage with a $400,000 inheritance from her mother. When they separated four years later, the house was worth $800,000 — and Keith was entitled to half the equity: $400,000. Janet's dilemma. Janet did form a trust — but a poorly prepared one that included future partners as beneficiaries. When she and Jason separated, Jason successfully had Janet removed as trustee and the Public Trust appointed, leaving the distribution of her trust's assets to the Public Trust's discretion. The lesson: a properly drafted trust that excludes future partners, settled before the new relationship, would have kept the home and the inheritance safe in both cases. If you're entering a new relationship, a parallel trust or defined interest trust — often with a contracting out agreement — keeps pre-relationship assets separate while still providing for your partner on terms you choose. Parallel and defined interest trusts → Contracting out agreements → Joseph and Daisy had two children. Joseph died, leaving everything to Daisy. Daisy later married Henry and they bought a home together as joint owners. When Daisy died, the jointly owned home passed automatically to Henry by survivorship — regardless of what Daisy's will said. When Henry died, his will left everything to his own son. Daisy's children received nothing. Had Daisy's share been held by a trust — the trust owning 50% and Henry 50% — her children, as the trust's beneficiaries, would have been protected. If you have children from a previous relationship, how your home is owned matters as much as what your will says. Mark and Joy ran a profitable company for twenty years, both as directors, both guaranteeing the lease and the creditors' accounts. When the business hit trouble, it owed $200,000 — with four years still to run on a $100,000-a-year lease it couldn't pay. Both were bankrupted. With the right structure, the outcome is different: one spouse as director (confining the guarantees), market-rate salaries, a trust as shareholder, and surplus profits distributed to the trust in the good years. If the business then fails, the trust's assets — and the non-director spouse's — remain secure. If you own a business and have given personal guarantees, this is the single strongest reason for a trust-based plan. Jill's experience. Jill had a stroke at 67 and moved into a rest home. Her home was worth $600,000, but only the exempt threshold was protected from means testing — she had to spend the first $400,000 of her own money on care before any subsidy applied. Moana's strategy. Moana sold her house to a trust at 47, when it was worth $300,000, and completed her gifting by 58 — more than five years before she ever needed care. When she entered care at 67, the house had doubled in value, but the growth belonged to the trust and her gifts were outside the five-year window. She qualified for the residential care subsidy. The difference wasn't wealth — it was timing. The full rules, current thresholds and gifting limits are in the next section of this guide: care costs and gifting → When beneficiaries inherit personally, their inheritance is exposed to their creditors, their relationship breakdowns, and means testing for their own care. Sarah inherited a substantial sum under her parents' wills — and a large part of it went straight to her creditors. Inheritance trusts and multi-generational trusts solve this: assets pass to trusts for your loved ones rather than to them personally, so what you built stays in the family. Multi-generational trusts are particularly effective where there's a single child. These structures were historically used by wealthier families — they work for every family. Bill and Joan's property lawyer set up a trust when they bought their home — but prepared only the trust deed. No deeds of loan for the $800,000 they lent the trust, no gifting, no new wills leaving their estates to the trust. When Bill died without a will, his $400,000 loan to the trust passed to Joan under the intestacy rules — so the trust now owed her $800,000. When Joan later suffered a stroke and needed care, that $800,000 debt was an asset in her means assessment: all but the exempt amount had to be spent on her care. The trust deed alone protected nothing. A trust is a plan, not a document. If your trust was set up without deeds of loan, a completed gifting programme, and wills leaving your estates to the trust — or if it hasn't been reviewed since the Trusts Act 2019 — have it reviewed now, while it can still be fixed. Answer a short questionnaire and receive a free report on the documents you're likely to need — no cost, no obligation.How to Choose — Find Your Situation
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Much of what people "know" about trusts is out of date or simply wrong. Here's the truth behind the seven myths we hear most — honestly, including where the caution is justified. False. The Trusts Act 2019 didn't abolish the protection trusts provide — it modernised trustees' duties, required trustees to keep core documents and tell beneficiaries basic information, and made trusts more transparent. Trusts that are properly drafted and properly run work as well as they ever did. What the Act did end is the era of the "set and forget" trust: a trust that nobody administers is a liability, not a protection. That's an argument for doing it properly, not for not doing it. False — and this myth causes real damage. Mark and Veronica had a trust that had owned their home since 1985, fully gifted. In 2020 they bought a retirement village apartment, which had to be in their personal names. Their property lawyer told them trusts no longer protected against care costs and wound their trust up. That advice was wrong: had the trust survived, it could have lent them the purchase price (secured by a deed of loan, so their personal equity was nil) and made the investments itself — preserving their subsidy eligibility. Instead, the wind-up put thirty-five years of protection back into their personal names. What is true: the rules are strict, gifting is limited and takes years, and MSD scrutinises transactions. Trusts protect against care costs when the structure is right and the timing is early — which is exactly why specialist advice matters. See the current rules in the care costs and gifting section → False. If your main asset is the family home, you hold exactly the asset trusts were designed to protect — and the one your family can least afford to lose to a relationship claim, a business failure, or care-cost means testing. A trust-based plan is a one-off investment; the asset it protects is usually worth hundreds of times more. Wealthy families have used these structures for generations precisely because they work. They work for every family. Not with the right structure. You can be a trustee (or a director of a private trustee company that acts as sole trustee), a beneficiary, and hold the power to appoint and remove trustees. You continue living in the trust's home exactly as before. What changes is legal ownership — which is precisely the point, because what you don't legally own can't easily be taken from you. The honest caution: control has limits. A trust run as if the assets were still personally yours — decisions never minuted, trustees never consulted — risks being attacked as a sham or an alter ego trust. Our running instructions keep you on the right side of that line with minimal effort. Not ours. Day to day, life with a trust looks almost identical to life without one: your personal account handles your income and spending; the trust's account handles trust investments and payments. You live in the trust's house and pay the rates, insurance and interest as before. Our plans include plain-English running instructions and template minutes, there are no ongoing fees unless you consult us, and you are not tied to us. Trustees can handle the administration themselves. Sometimes true — that's why we offer both plans. But a will only speaks at your death. It gives no protection during your lifetime, it can be rewritten by the court after your death under the Family Protection Act, probate freezes your estate for months, and your beneficiaries inherit personally — exposed to their own creditors and relationship claims. If any of the situations in the how-to-choose section sound like yours, a will alone leaves the gap exactly where the risk is. Rarely true. Even at 80, structure matters. Veronica and Maximus, both 80, owned their $500,000 home jointly — so on the first death everything would pass to the survivor, and if the survivor later needed care, everything above the exempt threshold would be spent on it. The fix was simple: hold the home as tenants in common in equal shares, form a trust, and make wills leaving each half to the trust. On the first death, half the house is safely in the trust — and the survivor's exempt threshold covers much of the rest. Some protections do need years to mature (gifting especially) — which is the strongest argument for starting now, not for not starting.Old Wives' Tales About Trusts — Busted
The residential care subsidy is means tested. These are the rules as they stand from 1 July 2026 — they adjust every 1 July, and we keep this page current. To qualify for the residential care subsidy, your assets must be at or below the threshold for your situation (as at 1 July 2026, adjusted each year for inflation): Everything above the applicable threshold must be spent on your care before the subsidy applies. On a $1 million estate, that can mean $700,000 or more of a lifetime's savings. When you apply for the subsidy, MSD looks at what you've given away: This is why early action matters so much. A couple who sell their home to a trust and gift $27,000 a year can complete the gifting of a substantial loan over a number of years — but every year of that programme must finish more than five years before a subsidy application to be fully effective. Moana completed her gifting at 58 and qualified for the subsidy at 67. Starting at 75 gives the same rules far less room to work. Two principles do the work: What a trust does not do: it doesn't make existing personal assets vanish overnight, it doesn't excuse gifts beyond the allowed limits (MSD adds excess gifting back), and it doesn't help if the structure is incomplete — Bill and Joan's story above shows what happens when the loan is never gifted. MSD will also check that assets were sold to the trust at fair value. Take a couple aged 50: a $500,000 home, $400,000 in term deposits. One partner dies; twenty years later, at 70, the survivor needs care. With 4% inflation the home is then worth $1,000,000. Without a trust: everything passed to the survivor, who now holds about $1.4 million. Only the exempt threshold (adjusted for inflation) is protected — roughly $1.1 million must be spent on care before any subsidy applies. With a trust-based plan (home sold to the trust at 50, gifting completed over the following years, wills leaving each estate to the trust): the home's growth belongs to the trust, the completed gifts are outside the assessment, and the first partner's estate passed to the trust rather than the survivor. The survivor's assessable assets fall within the exemption — the subsidy applies. Same couple, same assets, same care. The difference is roughly a million dollars — and it was decided twenty years earlier. Everything above is general information based on the rules as at 1 July 2026. The thresholds adjust annually, the gifting limits are enforced, and MSD examines transactions. This planning works when it's done properly, early, and kept up to date — please talk to us about your own situation before acting.Care Costs & Gifting — the Current Rules, in Plain English
The rules are strict — and that's the point
A trust is a plan, not a document. Here's the complete process — and why each step matters. Our questionnaire captures your family, assets and goals, so the plan is designed around your objectives — best case and worst case. The right trustees, genuinely involved in decisions — often your own private trustee company as sole trustee, which cuts ongoing costs and simplifies succession. Then the right trust type for your situation. We draft a tailor-made deed complying with the Trusts Act 2019, sell your appreciating assets to the trust at today's value under a deed of loan, and gift the loan — in a lump sum or staged for means-testing purposes. New wills leave your estates to the trust, completing the protection. We then review the plan with you as life changes — births, deaths, relationships, business. 1. Your assets move to the trust at today's market value, so all future growth belongs to the trust. 2. Your will leaves your estate to the trust, so the trust accumulates what's left when you die. Everything else — the deeds, the gifting, the minutes — exists to make those two principles hold up when they're tested.Setting Up a Trust — How It's Done Properly
Define your objectives
Choose trustees & structure
Deed, transfer & gifting
New wills & reviews
The two principles that make it all work
With our running instructions, life with a trust works much the same as life without one — if anything, it's tidier. Your personal bank account still handles your income and personal spending. You own the depreciating assets — furniture, cars. You live in the trust's house and pay the rates, insurance, maintenance and interest, as you do now. The trust owns the appreciating assets. Its bank account handles trust investments, trust income and payments to beneficiaries, and it makes the principal mortgage repayments (you lend it the money to do so). Plain-English running instructions and template minutes so the trustees can handle the administration themselves — with us here to help whenever you need us. Your will-based or trust-based plan is usually a one-off investment. Ongoing running costs are modest because the trustees can do the administration themselves. And three promises: the trusts we form are no more difficult to run than your own affairs; we are here to support you whenever you need advice; and there are no ongoing fees unless you consult us — you are not tied to us.Running the Trust Is Easier Than You Think
What stays the same
What the trust does
What we give you
The costs — and our promises
The questionnaire is the foundation of your plan — the more complete your answers, the better we can protect you and your family. Complete it at home, at your own pace. Every plan we prepare starts with our questionnaire. It captures the information we need to design a plan tailored to your family, your assets and your goals — rather than a generic template. There's no time pressure: your answers save as you go, so you can stop, think, talk it over with your partner, and come back. Once we receive your completed questionnaire, we prepare your documents and review everything with you before you sign. Please accept your quote and our Terms of Engagement first — the will-based plan page and trust-based plan page take you through fees, terms and acceptance. Then come back here to complete your questionnaire. Full legal names (as on your passport or birth certificate), dates of birth, home address, email, and phone number. If you're completing the questionnaire as a couple, you'll need these details for both of you. Full names and dates of birth of your children and grandchildren. Details of any previous relationships, step-children, or dependants. Names and contact details of anyone you'd like to appoint as guardian for minor children. The people you'd like to appoint as executors of your will, trustees of your trust (if applicable), and attorneys under your enduring powers of attorney. For each person, we need their full legal name, date of birth, address, phone, email, and relationship to you. You should also choose backup appointees in case your first choice is unable to act. A list of your significant assets — property, bank accounts, investments, KiwiSaver, business interests, vehicles, and valuable personal items. Details of any mortgages, loans, or other liabilities. If you have an existing trust, details of the trust and the assets it holds. For trust-based plans, have IRD numbers and your accountant's contact details ready. Who should inherit your assets and in what proportions. Any specific gifts or bequests. Your wishes about healthcare, funeral arrangements, and organ donation. Any special considerations — such as vulnerable beneficiaries, charitable giving, or family situations that need careful handling. Email accounts, social media, online banking, subscriptions, cryptocurrency, and any other digital assets or accounts. This helps your executors find and manage your online life. Complete the online questionnaire from home — it takes 15–25 minutes and saves automatically, so you can stop and return anytime. Takes 30–90 minutes depending on your trust type, and saves automatically. The online version is launching very soon — the preparation guide gets you ready now. The preparation guides follow the same section order as the online questionnaires — use them to gather names, dates and details before you begin. Completing on paper instead? Email your completed questionnaire to reception@rossholmes.co.nzYour Estate & Asset Protection Questionnaire
Before you start
What Information You'll Need
Will-Based Questionnaire
Trust-Based Questionnaire
Explore in More Depth
Choose a topic to learn more about your options, your obligations, and your rights.
Plans & Pricing
Will-Based Estate Plans
When a well-structured will is enough.
Types of Wills
Simple, Normal and Complex — compared.
Trust-Based Estate Plans
When you need a trust for extra protection.
Types of Trusts
Family, Parallel, Defined Interest and more.
Charitable Trusts
Structuring your giving for long-term impact.
Memorandum of Wishes
Guiding your trustees on how to use their powers.
Managing & Reviewing Your Trust
Reviewing Your Trust
Trusts Act 2019 compliance and updates.
Administering Your Trust
Practical guidance for trustees.
The Trusts Act 2019
What has changed and what it means for your trust.
Winding Up a Trust
When and how to wind up — and when not to.
Our Questionnaire Guide
Step-by-step help completing our questionnaire.
Estates
Administering estates and protecting your legacy.
Trust Risks & Challenges
Invalidity of Trusts
The three certainties and when a trust fails.
Sham Trusts
When a trust is just a facade.
Alter Ego Trusts
When the settlor retains too much control.
Trusts & Relationship Property
How separation can affect trust assets.
Trusts & Section 182
Nuptial settlements and post-separation claims.
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Answer a short questionnaire and receive a free report on the documents you're likely to need — then talk to us when you're ready. We're here to help you achieve your objectives, not to blow our own trumpet.
Prefer paper? Download the printable version of this guide (PDF) — generated from this page and updated every July.
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Request a personalised quote online, ask us anything, or if you’re a new client, book a free 15-minute meeting to meet our team and see if we’re the right fit.
The introductory meeting is a chance to meet our team — it is not for legal advice.
This page is general information, not legal advice for your specific situation. The care-subsidy thresholds and gifting rules change every July, and every family is different — please contact us to discuss yours.