What we do
Five headings. Open one for what sits under it.
Practice areas
01Property & conveyancing
— We read the agreement before you are bound by it.
- Buying
- The agreement, the title, the LIM, the flats plan, the body corporate papers. Conditions, dates, mortgage, settlement.
- Selling
- Checking what the agent drafted, discharging the mortgage, and accounting to you the day the money lands.
- Cross-lease & unit title
- Common on the peninsula and the source of most surprises. We read the flats plan against what is actually built.
- Character overlays
- Much of Devonport sits in a Special Character Areas overlay. We tell you what that means before you commit.
- Refinancing
- Moving a loan between banks, adding or removing a borrower, and the certificates your lender needs.
- KiwiSaver withdrawal
- The first-home application and declaration. Start it earlier than you think you need to.
02Wills & estates
— The documents that decide things when you cannot.
- Wills
- Straightforward, or built to handle a blended family, a trust, or a business share. The original stays in the strongroom.
- Enduring powers of attorney
- Two documents: property, and personal care. The law requires independent advice, so we see you alone for part of it.
- Probate & administration
- The High Court application, then the actual work — closing accounts, transferring the house, distributing what is left.
- Small estates
- Below the probate threshold the job is smaller and the fee should be too. We tell you which one you are in at the first meeting.
- Residential care
- Asset testing, what gifting history gets looked at, and how a trust is treated. There is rarely a clever way around it.
- Retirement villages
- Occupation Right Agreements run to a hundred pages. We go through the deferred management fee with you and your family.
03Family trusts
— Sometimes the honest answer is to wind it up.
- Reviews
- The Trusts Act 2019 raised what is expected of trustees. Many trusts have not been looked at since the 1990s.
- Setting one up
- Deed, trustee decisions, memorandum of wishes. We will talk you out of it if the reason does not hold up.
- Trustee duties
- Annual resolutions, keeping the core documents, and what a beneficiary is entitled to ask for.
- Winding up
- Resettling assets to the people who should hold them, and the tax questions that come with it.
04Family & relationship property
— Most of it settles by agreement. You should know early if yours will not.
- Contracting out
- Often called a prenup. Usually done when one person brings more into a house purchase. Each side needs their own lawyer.
- Separation
- What the Property (Relationships) Act treats as relationship property and what it does not. The house, KiwiSaver, debt.
- Care of children
- Parenting arrangements by agreement where possible, Family Court where it is not.
- Dissolution
- Procedural and inexpensive, and a separate matter from dividing property. People are often surprised by that.
05Business & commercial
— Write down what was agreed while everyone still agrees.
- Buying or selling
- Agreements, due diligence, restraint of trade, and the lease transfer that usually holds everything up.
- Leases
- Read before you sign. Rent reviews, make-good at the end, personal guarantees, and selling partway through a term.
- Companies
- Incorporation, constitutions, and a shareholders agreement that says what happens when one of you wants out.
- Commercial property
- Buying premises, seismic rating, resource consents, and what the building is actually allowed to be used for.
If what you need is not here, ring anyway. Half our calls are people unsure whether their problem is a legal one — and that conversation costs nothing either way.
If a matter does not need a lawyer, we say so. It costs us an appointment and saves you a fee.
Fixed fee means the figure in our engagement letter is the fee. Hourly means we record time in six-minute units. Estimate on instruction means a written range before we start, and a second letter if it is going to be exceeded.
Whichever applies is in the engagement letter before work starts, with the name of the person doing it. If the shape of a matter changes, we write to you with a revised figure and wait for you to say yes.
A starting point, not a quote.
A starting point, not a quote. If a matter turns out to be more involved it costs more, and we tell you before that happens. Excludes GST and disbursements.
| Matter | Basis | Excl. GST |
|---|---|---|
| Residential sale | Fixed | $1,450 |
| Residential purchase | Fixed | $1,650 |
| cross-lease or unit title | Added | $350 |
| KiwiSaver withdrawal | Added | $250 |
| Refinance | Fixed | $850 |
| Will | Fixed | $480 |
| Mirror wills, a couple | Fixed | $780 |
| Enduring powers of attorney, one | Fixed | $580 |
| Enduring powers of attorney, a couple | Fixed | $980 |
| Trust review & written report | From | $1,200 |
| Estate administration | Estimate | — |
| Family & relationship property | Hourly | — |
| Business, commercial & leases | Estimate | — |
| Acting | Per hour |
|---|---|
| Partner | $450 |
| Senior solicitor | $340 |
| Solicitor | $270 |
| Registered legal executive | $230 |
Disbursements at cost, shown separately — LINZ registration and title searches, filing fees, identity verification, couriers.
The first half hour is not charged. Long enough to work out whether you need a lawyer, whether you need this one, and roughly what it costs.
Nothing on this site is legal advice. It is a general description of the work a general practice does. Your situation will have facts in it that change the answer, which is the reason to come and see someone.
Bring thepaperwork in.
The agreement, the letter from the bank, the will from the drawer. Half an hour, no charge, and you leave knowing what it costs.