Tasmania gives families just three months from the grant of probate to contest a will — by far the shortest window in Australia, and a quarter of the time a New South Wales family would have. It is a genuinely tight deadline that catches people out.
Three things about witnessing a will are genuinely different in Tasmania 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.
In Tasmania this mistake has real teeth. Under section 12 of the Wills Act 2008 (Tas), if someone who inherits under the will also signs as a witness, their gift is void — not the whole will, just their share.
That is the cruellest possible outcome, because everything else works perfectly. The will stands. Probate is granted. Every other gift is paid in full. The one person you were trying to look after gets nothing, and their share falls back into the estate to be divided among everybody else — quite possibly the very people you were trying to provide for less generously.
The gift can be rescued, but only if more than two people signed as witnesses and at least two of them are not beneficiaries or the partner of a beneficiary, or everyone who would gain from the gift failing consents in writing. Section 13 also lets the Court be asked to validate the gift. Every one of those routes means either a court application or the active goodwill of the people who stand to gain from the gift failing. Neither is something to plan around.
This is not the law everywhere in Australia. In Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the ACT that identical signature would not cost the beneficiary a cent. Advice written for those states does not protect you in TAS, and much of what you will read online does not say which state it is describing.
No. In Tasmania 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 8 of the Wills Act 2008 (Tas).
Tasmania's pandemic legislation, the COVID-19 Disease Emergency (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020, did not extend to succession documents, and no permanent remote witnessing scheme has been introduced since. A Tasmanian will must therefore be signed with both witnesses physically present in the same room. A will witnessed by video link is not validly executed, and the family would need to apply to the Supreme Court under section 10 to have it admitted as an informal will.
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 Tasmania today.
If a will is signed by video link in TAS, it is not validly executed. It is not automatically worthless — someone can ask the Supreme Court of Tasmania to admit it as an informal will under section 10 of the Wills Act 2008 (Tas) — 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 Tasmania, a family provision claim — an application by someone who says they were not adequately provided for — must be brought within 3 months of the grant of probate, under section 11 of the Testator's Family Maintenance Act 1912 (Tas).
Three months is by far the shortest window in Australia — a quarter of the time a New South Wales family would have. Section 11 states the Court has no jurisdiction to hear an application unless it is brought not later than three months after the grant of probate. The Court can extend that time, but nobody should count on it.
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 TAS your family will be working to a 3 months clock while they sort it out.
The formal requirements in Tasmania 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 Tasmania has a dispensing power under section 10 of the Wills Act 2008 (Tas), 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 the Intestacy Act 2010 (Tas) decides who inherits. In Tasmania that means your surviving partner takes the first $350,000 plus CPI (statutory legacy) and the balance is shared with your children — a figure that a base figure of $350,000 adjusted for inflation from the December 2009 quarter, so the real figure today is considerably higher. A ten-minute signing error can therefore redirect the entire estate — see who inherits if there is no valid will in TAS.
There is a cost dimension too. Tasmania charges on a sliding scale based on the value of the estate, with the fee rising as the estate gets larger. Fees are generally reviewed on 1 July each year.
No. Under section 12 of the Wills Act 2008 (Tas), a gift to someone who witnessed the will is void to the extent it benefits them. The rest of the will stands, so the result is that one specific person — the one you were trying to look after — receives nothing. It can only be saved if more than two people signed as witnesses and at least two of them are not beneficiaries or the partner of a beneficiary, or everyone who would gain from the gift failing consents in writing. Section 13 also lets the Court be asked to validate the gift.
No. Tasmania 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.
3 months from the grant of probate, under section 11 of the Testator's Family Maintenance Act 1912 (Tas). The court can extend that period, but it is a discretion and not something to count on — particularly once the estate has been distributed.
Tasmania charges on a sliding scale based on the value of the estate, with the fee rising as the estate gets larger. 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 TAS schedule before relying on a number.
Tasmania stands out for one reason above all: it has the shortest deadline in Australia to contest a will, at three months from the grant of probate. New South Wales allows twelve. That single difference can decide whether a left out family member has any remedy at all. Tasmania is also strict on witnesses — a gift to someone who witnessed your will is void here, as in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory, though section 13 does let the Court be asked to validate it. And like most of the country outside New South Wales and Victoria, Tasmania requires everyone to be physically present at the signing.
No — there is no register and no notary requirement anywhere in Australia, including Tasmania. 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.