The Australian Capital Territory sets the surviving partner's entitlement at a flat $200,000 with no indexation at all — a figure that has stood still while property prices have not. The ACT also allowed video witnessing of wills during the pandemic, but that ended on 31 December 2022.
Three things about witnessing a will are genuinely different in the Australian Capital Territory from other parts of Australia, and they are the three that cost families money. This page covers those. For the parts that are the same everywhere — who is allowed to witness, and the mechanics of signing — see who can witness a will and how to sign a will correctly.
the Australian Capital Territory has abolished the old interested-witness rule. Under section 15 of the Wills Act 1968 (ACT), a person is not disqualified from taking a benefit under a will merely because they — or their spouse or domestic partner — witnessed it.
So if your daughter witnesses your will in ACT and you have left her the house, she keeps the house.
The same signature in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania or the Northern Territory would destroy that gift. Identical will, identical family, opposite outcome — decided entirely by which side of a state border the document was signed on. That is why generic advice on this point is dangerous, in either direction.
We still say don't do it. Abolishing the rule removed a technical trap; it did not remove an evidential one. If the person standing over you while you signed is also the person who did unusually well out of the document, you have handed any disappointed relative the easiest undue-influence argument there is. The gift is not void — it is merely contestable, and contested at the estate's expense.
No. In the Australian Capital Territory a will cannot be witnessed over Zoom, FaceTime or any other video link. You and both witnesses must be physically together, in the same room, when the will is signed. The requirement sits in section 9 of the Wills Act 1968 (ACT).
The ACT did permit remote witnessing during the pandemic, under section 4 of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 (ACT), but those provisions expired on 31 December 2022 and were not made permanent. So the position today has reverted: an ACT will must be signed with both witnesses physically present in the same room. This is worth knowing precisely because the ACT once allowed it — a will signed by video link in 2021 may well be valid, while the same signing today would not be.
This matters more than it sounds, because New South Wales and Victoria do permit it — and a great deal of the advice you will find online was either written for those two states or written during the pandemic, when the rules were temporarily different in more places. An article that says "you can now witness a will by video call in Australia" is not describing the Australian Capital Territory today.
If a will is signed by video link in ACT, it is not validly executed. It is not automatically worthless — someone can ask the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory to admit it as an informal will under section 11A of the Wills Act 1968 (ACT) — but that means a Supreme Court application, legal costs out of the estate, months of delay, and no guarantee. Get two people into the room.
This one surprises almost everybody, and it varies more between states than any other rule about wills.
In the Australian Capital Territory, a family provision claim — an application by someone who says they were not adequately provided for — must be brought within 6 months of the grant of administration, under section 9 of the Family Provision Act 1969 (ACT).
Section 9(1) requires an application within 6 months after the date administration was granted. Importantly, section 9(4) blocks any extension application once the estate has been lawfully and fully distributed — so once the money is out the door, the door is shut.
Notice that there are two variables here, not one. The length of the window differs — Tasmania allows three months, New South Wales and the Northern Territory allow twelve. And the starting point differs: in New South Wales and Queensland the clock runs from the date of death, while in the other six jurisdictions it runs from the grant of probate or administration. Two estates with identical facts can have deadlines many months apart depending purely on where the person lived.
Every court can extend time at its discretion, and sometimes does. But an extension is a discretion, not an entitlement — the court will weigh how strong the claim is, whether beneficiaries would be prejudiced, how good the explanation for the delay is, and crucially whether the estate has already been distributed. Once the money is out the door, the practical answer is usually no.
Why does this belong on a page about witnessing? Because a badly witnessed will is the single easiest thing to attack, and it puts your estate into exactly this timeline. A properly executed will proves itself and is administered quietly. A defective one invites an application, and in ACT your family will be working to a 6 months clock while they sort it out.
The formal requirements in the Australian Capital Territory are:
The mechanics of doing that correctly — the order of signing, whether to initial every page, dating, and how to handle a change — are the same in every state and are set out in how to sign a will correctly. Who is eligible to act as a witness is likewise national: see who can witness a will.
The Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory has a dispensing power under section 11A of the Wills Act 1968 (ACT), letting it admit a document that fails the formal requirements if satisfied the deceased intended it to operate as their will.
If the court is not satisfied, the will is set aside entirely and Schedule 6 of the Administration and Probate Act 1929 (ACT) decides who inherits. In the Australian Capital Territory that means your surviving partner takes the first $200,000 (partner's entitlement) and the balance is shared with your children — a figure that a flat figure with no indexation, and one of the lowest in the country. A ten-minute signing error can therefore redirect the entire estate — see who inherits if there is no valid will in ACT.
There is a cost dimension too. The ACT charges on a sliding scale based on the value of the estate. Estates under $50,000 pay no filing fee, rising to several thousand dollars for estates over $1 million. The ACT also has no separate simplified process for small estates, so even a modest estate goes through the standard application.
Their gift survives. section 15 of the Wills Act 1968 (ACT) means a person is not disqualified from taking a benefit merely because they witnessed the will. We still advise against it, because it makes the will easier to attack on undue influence. The answer would be the opposite in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, where the gift fails.
No. the Australian Capital Territory has no provision permitting a will to be witnessed by audio-visual link, so everyone must be physically present. Only New South Wales and Victoria allow it. Advice suggesting otherwise is either written for those states or describes pandemic-era rules that have since lapsed.
6 months from the grant of administration, under section 9 of the Family Provision Act 1969 (ACT). The court can extend that period, but it is a discretion and not something to count on — particularly once the estate has been distributed.
The ACT charges on a sliding scale based on the value of the estate. Estates under $50,000 pay no filing fee, rising to several thousand dollars for estates over $1 million. The ACT also has no separate simplified process for small estates, so even a modest estate goes through the standard application. These are court fees only, and exclude any solicitor or trustee company charges. Figures are as at FY2026-27 and most jurisdictions re-index on 1 July, so check the current ACT schedule before relying on a number.
The ACT is unusual in two ways. Its partner's entitlement of $200,000 is a flat figure that is never indexed, so unlike New South Wales, which re-indexes quarterly to $611,387.84, the ACT figure quietly erodes every year. And the ACT is the one jurisdiction where the remote witnessing position actually reversed: it was lawful under the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 but expired on 31 December 2022, so a will signed by video in 2021 may stand while the identical signing today would not. Like Victoria and South Australia, the ACT has abolished the rule voiding a gift to a witness.
No — there is no register and no notary requirement anywhere in Australia, including the Australian Capital Territory. A correctly signed and witnessed will is valid on its own, including one prepared online: see whether an online will is legally valid in Australia.