The ACT Estate tables have been significantly updated to allow for improved automation of Estate Court forms.  These changes will be effective Monday, 4 November. This will save users considerable time in preparation of Court forms.  Subsequently, there is now essential data that must be completed within your LEAP matter as clauses within the Court forms will populate according to either completion or non-completion of these tables.

Probate details, Letters of Administration details, and Estate Accounts details Tables

User completion of all fields, including the following new or amended fields, is ESSENTIAL when applicable for advanced automation of the Court forms:

• Addition of new field Martial status that will automate from Deceased’s card
• Addition of new field Enter spouse/defacto name, if applicable – where a name is completed the wording of the Court forms will populate and change accordingly
• Amend wording of current Date of marriage field to Date of marriage/ partnership/ union with a calculation from this field and the Date of Will field to determine if this date entered is after the date the will was made – therefore populating the relevant correct wording within the Court forms
• Creation of new field After the Will was made, was the Deceased’s? with a drop-down list when completed will populate the relevant correct wording of the Court forms. The drop-down list includes:
  • Marriage terminated by Divorce
  • Marriage Annulled
  • Civil union terminated
  • Civil partnership terminated
  • Not applicable
• Addition of If so, Date field to be completed if the After the Will was made, was the Deceased’s? field applies to the matter
• Addition of new field If Yes, are you in possession of the other document? – completion required where you have answered ‘Yes’ that you are aware of the existence of another document purporting to embody the testamentary intentions of the deceased

In addition, the following tidying has been undertaken:

• Reordering of fields in tables so that matter completion aligns with matter processes
• Remove references to ‘in the Sydney Morning Herald’
• Notations now appear in blue font for your ease

Forms Re-coded

The following Court forms have been re-coded for improved automation from the changes to the above tables:

• Affidavit of applicant for probate – Form 3.11 (LL-ACT-SC-0188)
• Affidavit of applicant for administration – no will – Form 3.13 (LL-ACT-SC-0190)
• Affidavit of applicant for administration – with will – Form 3.12 (LL-ACT-SC-0186)
• Affidavit of applicant for reseal of foreign grant – Form 3.19 (LL-ACT-SC-0196)
• Affidavit of justification – Form 3.22 (LL-ACT-SC-0199)
• Affidavit in support of application by public trustee and guardian – Form 3.23 (LL-ACT-SC-0200)
• Accountants certificate of correctness of accounts – Form 2.82 (LL-ACT-SC-0105)
• Administration bond – Form 3.21 (LL-ACT-SC-0198)
• Executors administrators or trustees affidavit and account – Form 2.79 (LL-ACT-SC-0102)
• Notice of intended distribution – Form 1 (LL-ACT-SC-0249)

If you believe there are further Court forms that could be re-coded with the improved automation, please email content@leap.com.au

Critical Dates

Renaming Critical Dates Notice of intended application published and Notice of intended distribution published, so that they refer to the word ‘published’ not ‘advertised’ for consistency across matter types.

Default tables used

• Addition of Transferor and Transferee to the default table types in matter types
• Reordering of default table types

IMPORTANT NOTE: FULLY AUTOMATED INVENTORY OF PROPERTY – STAGE 2 IMPROVEMENTS

Stage 2 of the improved automation will include a fully automated Inventory of Property within the Court forms and you will note some changes to the Assets and Liabilities tables have already taken place, including the Owned drop-down list, in readiness.

We are asking for feedback for the fully automated Inventory of Property.  If you would like to provide such feedback, please email the Content team at content@leap.com.au so that we can finalise the Stage 2 release, which will be of great benefit to our clients.