A 30-year relationship, a property, and 13 years of legal limbo – what this High Court case tells us about de facto rights on death.
Mr A died in 2013. He left behind a de facto partner of many years, a property, and a will that said nothing about New Zealand.
His surviving partner, Ms B, has spent more than a decade trying to establish that she has rights to it under New Zealand law. In May 2026, the High Court ruled that she has a reasonably arguable case, and that her notice of claim over the property should stand.
It took 13 years to get to that point. And none of it needed to happen this way.
How it unravelled
Ms B and Mr A were together from 1983. They lived primarily outside New Zealand, and Mr A purchased a property in New Zealand in 2005. When he died in 2013, he left a will, but it dealt only with assets outside New Zealand. Instead of being dealt with according to Mr A’s wishes, the New Zealand property fell into a legal structure (intestacy), governed entirely by New Zealand law.
In 2015, letters of administration were sought and subsequently granted over Mr A’s New Zealand estate. Ms B was not told. The application was supported by affidavits stating that under the law of the country the will was prepared in, she had no rights to the estate beyond a life interest in an apartment. No one mentioned that New Zealand law applied to the New Zealand property, and that under New Zealand law, Ms B’s position might be very different.
She found out she had rights in New Zealand in 2017. By then, the time limit for making a formal election under the Property (Relationships) Act had already passed.
The election nobody told her about
When a de facto partner dies, the surviving partner has six months from the grant of administration to make a choice under section 61 of the PRA. This is known as an election. The election choices are:
A) apply for a division of relationship property under the PRA.
B) take under the will or intestacy instead.
Make no election, and the law deems you to have chosen option B; giving up your PRA claim by default. That is what happened to Ms B. Not because she chose it but because she didn’t know the choice existed.
This is not an unusual situation. It happens in blended families, in international relationships, and whenever one partner handles all legal and financial matters and the other is left in the dark.
The clock starts whether you know about it or not
There is also a 12-month limit on bringing proceedings under the PRA after administration is granted. Miss it, and you need the court’s permission to proceed which is not guaranteed, and which requires you to explain the delay to a judge.
In this case, the delay was nine years past the deadline. Ms B’s explanation, that she had been engaged in ongoing negotiations to resolve the matter without going to court, was found to be reasonably arguable. But she is not out of the woods yet.
Thirteen years on, she is still fighting for what the PRA may well have given her automatically if anyone had told her about it in 2016.
What the case also tells us about international relationships
One of the less obvious aspects of this case is the international dimension. The PRA applies to immovable property in New Zealand regardless of where the parties live or are domiciled (with some exceptions).
For couples who split time between countries, or who own New Zealand property while living overseas, this matters. Your New Zealand assets don’t fall outside the PRA just because you don’t live here.
What should have happened
A New Zealand will or, at minimum, legal advice about New Zealand assets before or shortly after Mr A’s death, would have changed everything. So would proper disclosure in the letters of administration application, which should have flagged that New Zealand immovable property was involved and that Ms B had potential rights to it.
Instead, a woman who spent some 20 – 30 years with someone is still, in 2026, waiting to find out whether she has a claim to a property he bought two decades ago.
If you are in this situation
If your partner has died and you think you may have a claim under the PRA, get advice immediately. The time limits are strict, and they run from events you may not even know have happened.
If you are administering an estate and the deceased had a de facto partner, that partner has rights you are obliged to consider regardless of what the will says, and regardless of where the couple lived.
Talk to a relationship property lawyer in Auckland
Gabrielle Thompson is a Senior Associate at Lane Neave specialising in relationship property law, de facto relationships, and separation. Based in Auckland, she works with clients across New Zealand.
Contact Gabrielle for a free 30-minute consultation.
