What to Do When Someone Dies NZ

What this guide covers

This guide is written as a practical reference for New Zealand families organizing private records before they become urgent. It focuses on the details that make a plan understandable to someone who may need to act quickly and carefully.

• This is a record checklist, not a replacement for official NZ death or estate guidance.
• The useful work is making contacts, documents, accounts, and wishes easy to locate.
• Digital records and subscriptions should be part of the after-death checklist.

Prepare the immediate contact record

An after death checklist NZ families can use should include emergency contacts, family contacts, executor details, lawyer or trustee company contacts, funeral or memorial preferences, care instructions, pet notes, and household access context.

• Family, executor, lawyer, trustee, advisor, and provider contacts
• Funeral, memorial, care, pet, vehicle, and household notes
• Immediate instructions that can be read without opening unrelated private sections

Keep official document references together

A death admin checklist NZ record should point to the will, estate documents, identity records, certificates, power of attorney documents, insurance files, property records, and any professional contacts who can confirm next steps.

• Will, estate, identity, certificate, and appointment document notes
• Insurance, property, banking, tax, and benefit references
• Document status notes that distinguish originals from reference copies

List accounts, bills, and policies before they are missed

Families may need to find bank accounts, investments, mortgages, debts, utilities, subscriptions, memberships, insurance policies, benefits, tax references, and business records.

• Accounts, assets, debts, bills, policies, benefits, and tax records
• Provider names, account references, and renewal dates
• Attached proof files beside each record

Include digital assets and devices

Digital records can disappear from view quickly. Record devices, backups, password manager notes, email, cloud storage, online services, subscriptions, photos, files, websites, and digital purchases where they matter.

• Devices, backups, cloud storage, email, and account references
• Digital assets that should be preserved, closed, reviewed, or transferred
• Trusted access for the people assigned to each role

Common New Zealand questions

How this fits in Legacy Toolkit

Use this guide as a working checklist inside the desktop vault. Create or review the relevant profile sections, attach the documents that support each record, add reminders where information can go stale, and share only the sections a trusted person needs for their role.

The goal is not to turn a private life into a public folder. The goal is to keep the plan legible, current, and controlled so the right person can find the right information without receiving the whole vault by default.

• Profile sections keep the plan readable instead of turning it into a loose notes file.
• Document attachments keep proof beside the account, asset, policy, or instruction it supports.
• Trusted access lets you prepare a handoff without exposing the full vault by default.

What to do when someone dies NZ record checklist

Treat this as a first pass, not a final legal packet. Review the items, fill in what is missing, and return to the plan whenever a provider, account, advisor, family role, or document changes.

• List family, executor, lawyer, trustee, advisor, provider, and emergency contacts.
• Record will, estate document, identity, certificate, policy, and property references.
• Organise accounts, assets, debts, bills, tax records, benefits, and subscriptions.
• Document devices, backups, email, cloud storage, digital assets, and recovery context.
• Prepare selected trusted access so the right person can find the right section.

Official New Zealand references

These links are included for context. Legacy Toolkit helps organise records and does not replace legal, financial, tax, medical, or court advice.

• New Zealand Government: What to do when someone dies
• New Zealand Government: Death and bereavement