Property Instructions for Your Partner: A Melbourne Parent’s Plan for the Family Home and Beyond

You’re raising kids in Melbourne. Between you and your partner there’s the family home in the inner north or out east, maybe an investment unit you bought before the second child, possibly a share in a holiday place down the coast. The mortgages, the insurers, the title documents and the conveyancer who handled the last refinance are scattered across email folders, a filing cabinet, and the back of your partner’s mind. The plan is to give your partner one clear inventory — what you own together, where the papers live, and who to call — without handing over a single password.

The problem

When a parent dies, property is usually the slowest part of the estate to administer. ASIC’s MoneySmart estate planning guidance is plain that an executor has to identify every asset, locate the documents, and deal with the institutions attached to each one before anything can be transferred or sold. For property that means: confirming the ownership structure (joint tenants versus tenants in common versus a family trust), finding the certificate of title or confirming it’s held electronically, contacting the mortgagee, renewing or transferring the building insurance, and — if there’s a tenant — making sure the managing agent knows who to talk to.

Your partner does not need your conveyancer’s password. They need to know which properties you hold, how each one is owned, who the mortgagee is, who the insurer is, where the title documents are kept, and the name and number of the conveyancer or solicitor who handled the most recent transaction. Without that, the months between death and the grant of probate are spent reconstructing a paper trail while bills keep arriving.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register: you record what you 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 address, the ownership structure, the mortgagee and loan reference, the building and landlord insurer with policy numbers, the physical or digital location of the title document, the conveyancer or solicitor contact, and — if applicable — the managing agent and current tenant arrangement. It does NOT store the title deed itself, your bank logins, or any credential. Your partner sees only the property module, only when you have authorised release.

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 (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 to your vault — address, ownership structure, mortgagee, insurer, location of title documents, conveyancer contact.
  2. You name your partner as the recipient for the property module and they accept (the vault records their consent under the Privacy Act).
  3. You add a short note per property explaining your intended beneficiary preferences for the children — not a will substitute, but context your partner can pass to the solicitor.
  4. If something happens, your partner is notified per your release rules and sees only the property instructions module — not your other modules unless you’ve released them too.
  5. Your partner contacts the conveyancer, the mortgagee, and the insurer directly with the reference numbers. They don’t have to guess which firm handled the last transfer or which insurer covers the holiday place.

Why this matters in Melbourne

Melbourne families often hold property across several structures at once — a Land Use Victoria title for the family home, a unit held in one name only, a holiday house on the Mornington Peninsula or Phillip Island in joint names, and sometimes an interest through a family trust. Each is administered differently after death, and a Victorian executor cannot transfer or sell anything until the asset has been identified and the supporting documents located. A clear instruction set — what exists, how it’s owned, who insures and finances it, where the papers live — typically saves a Melbourne family weeks of solicitor and bank back-and-forth, and reduces the risk of an insurance policy lapsing or a tenant arrangement breaking down while the estate is still being administered.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Melbourne parents

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when parents and partnered adults in Melbourne can register their first property module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what exists and how your partner can find it — not your bank logins, not your title deeds, and not the properties themselves.