South Australia rewrote its entire succession law from scratch on 1 January 2025. The Succession Act 2023 repealed the Wills Act 1936, the Administration and Probate Act 1919 and the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1972 all at once — which means a great deal of the advice still online about South Australian wills cites laws that no longer exist.
Three things about witnessing a will are genuinely different in South Australia 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.
South Australia has abolished the old interested-witness rule. Under section 13 of the Succession Act 2023 (SA), 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 SA 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 South Australia 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 the Succession Act 2023 (SA).
South Australia allowed remote witnessing briefly during the pandemic, under the COVID-19 Emergency Response (Section 17) Regulations 2020, but those regulations became obsolete on 9 September 2021 and were never replaced with a permanent scheme. Notably, when South Australia completely rewrote its succession law in the Succession Act 2023, it did not take the opportunity to introduce electronic or remote signing. So a South Australian will must be signed with both witnesses physically present.
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 South Australia today.
If a will is signed by video link in SA, it is not validly executed. It is not automatically worthless — someone can ask the Supreme Court of South Australia to admit it as an informal will under section 11(2) of the Succession Act 2023 (SA) — 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 South Australia, 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 probate, under section 118 of the Succession Act 2023 (SA).
Section 118 requires an application to be made within 6 months after the grant of probate or administration. Note that this is now found in the Succession Act 2023 — the old Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1972 was repealed on 1 January 2025, so older guides cite the wrong Act.
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 SA your family will be working to a 6 months clock while they sort it out.
The formal requirements in South Australia 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 South Australia has a dispensing power under section 11(2) of the Succession Act 2023 (SA), 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 Part 6 of the Succession Act 2023 (SA) decides who inherits. In South Australia that means your surviving partner takes the first $120,000 (preferential legacy) and the balance is shared with your children — a figure that indexed after the Act commenced, so the current figure may be higher. A ten-minute signing error can therefore redirect the entire estate — see who inherits if there is no valid will in SA.
There is a cost dimension too. South Australia charges on a sliding scale based on the value of the estate, so a larger estate pays a higher filing fee. Fees are generally reviewed on 1 July each year.
Their gift survives. section 13 of the Succession Act 2023 (SA) 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. South Australia 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 probate, under section 118 of the Succession Act 2023 (SA). The court can extend that period, but it is a discretion and not something to count on — particularly once the estate has been distributed.
South Australia charges on a sliding scale based on the value of the estate, so a larger estate pays a higher filing fee. Fees are generally reviewed on 1 July each year. 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 SA schedule before relying on a number.
South Australia is the jurisdiction where out of date advice is most dangerous, because on 1 January 2025 it replaced three separate Acts with a single Succession Act 2023. Any guide citing the Wills Act 1936 is describing repealed law. On the substance, South Australia has the lowest preferential legacy in the country at $120,000 — a fifth of the New South Wales figure — and it has abolished the interested witness rule, so a gift to a witness still stands. Unlike New South Wales and Victoria, it does not permit remote witnessing, and it chose not to introduce it even when rewriting the whole Act.
No — there is no register and no notary requirement anywhere in Australia, including South Australia. 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.