Property Instructions for Your Parent’s Executor: A Brisbane Carer’s Plan for the House, the Rental, and the Title Documents

You’re the adult child organising your mum or dad’s affairs in Brisbane. There’s the family home in Chermside, a small investment unit on the Gold Coast that’s been rented to the same tenant for nine years, and a sleeve of title documents somewhere — possibly with the bank, possibly in a filing cabinet, possibly with a solicitor whose firm has been bought twice since 1998. When your parent dies, the executor named in the will needs to find all of this fast. The plan is to write it down once, properly, before capacity becomes the problem.

The problem

ASIC’s MoneySmart guidance on wills and estate planning is clear that the executor’s job begins with identifying and securing the deceased’s assets — and property is usually the largest and slowest of those assets to administer. The executor cannot apply for probate, deal with the mortgagee, contact the insurer, or speak to a managing agent until they know what exists and where the paperwork lives. For an aging parent whose records have accumulated over forty years across multiple solicitors, accountants, and banks, that reconstruction work routinely takes months.

Property delays compound. Insurance lapses on an unoccupied home. A tenant doesn’t know who to pay rent to. The mortgagee writes letters to a deceased addressee. The executor pays bills out of their own pocket because the estate accounts aren’t open yet. None of this is the executor’s fault — they simply don’t have the inventory.

Your parent’s executor doesn’t need keys, deeds, or login details. They need a written record: every address your parent has an interest in, how that interest is held, who insures it, who holds the mortgage, where the title document physically lives, and who the conveyancer or solicitor is.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register: you (or your parent, with your help) record what they own, where to find it, and who you’ve nominated to receive the instructions. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per property: the full address, ownership structure (sole, joint tenants, tenants in common, trust, or company), the insurer and policy number, the mortgagee and loan reference, where the certificate of title or electronic title reference is held, the managing agent for any rental, and the conveyancer or solicitor used for the last transaction. It does NOT store the deed itself, the title document, or any password to a property portal or banking site. The executor sees the inventory you’ve prepared for them, only when you’ve released it.

The boundary matters: the Digital Legacy Vault is not a financial product, not a custody service, and not an advice service. It’s an instructions register. That’s what keeps it outside the AFSL regime under Corporations Act Part 7.6 and outside AUSTRAC reporting — and it’s also why it can be a simple subscription rather than a regulated product.

How it works

  1. You add each property your parent has an interest in — address, ownership structure, insurer, mortgagee, where the title is held.
  2. You record the managing agent (for rentals), the conveyancer used for the last transaction, and any trust or company structure documents your parent’s accountant holds.
  3. You name your parent’s executor as the recipient for the property module and they accept (the vault records their consent).
  4. You set release rules — typically on death, evidenced by a death certificate provided to Exegesis under your rules.
  5. When the time comes, the executor is notified per your release rules and sees only the property instructions module. They start phoning insurers, mortgagees, and agents on day one rather than week six.

Why this matters in Brisbane

Brisbane families often hold a Queensland family home plus an interstate or coastal investment — a Sunshine Coast unit, a Gold Coast rental, a Toowoomba inheritance — each with its own insurer, agent, and conveyancer in a different town. Queensland operates an electronic conveyancing and title system, which means the executor rarely holds a paper deed; instead they need to know which solicitor or financial institution holds the electronic title reference and which insurer covers an unoccupied dwelling clause. Recording that once, while your parent can still confirm the details, is the single highest-leverage hour you will spend on their estate planning.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Brisbane carers

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when carers organising an aging parent’s affairs in Brisbane can register their first property module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what exists and how the executor can find it — not the title documents, not the keys, and not the property itself.