Apply for Probate in Melbourne

How a Melbourne probate application reaches the Supreme Court of Victoria

RedCrest-Probate, not the counter

Victoria runs the most digital probate process in the country. A Melbourne application is filed through RedCrest-Probate, the Supreme Court of Victoria’s online filing platform, and the documents are uploaded rather than handed over a counter. That is a real difference from Western Australia and Queensland, where a grant application is still a paper file.

The Melbourne Probate Office

The Probate Office of the Supreme Court of Victoria is based at the Supreme Court Service Centre, 450 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, which is open 9.30am to 4.00pm Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays. In-person services are by pre-booked appointment, including appointments to have an affidavit witnessed, and the Probate Office takes phone enquiries on (03) 8600 2006 during the same hours. Note that this is a different address from the Court’s main building at 210 William Street.

Advertising a Melbourne application

Before a Victorian application can be filed, you publish a probate advertisement on the Supreme Court of Victoria’s website setting out your intention to apply. The fee is $24.50 and it is paid online by credit card at the time you publish. The legislation requires the advertisement to be published at least 14 days before the application is made, so it is the first thing to get moving on once you hold the original Will and the death certificate. Our Victorian probate guide sets out the full sequence.

The Victorian Inventory of Assets and Liabilities

Victoria requires an Inventory of Assets and Liabilities to be filed with the application, listing everything the deceased held solely or as a tenant in common, valued as at the date of death. Jointly held assets are left out. Getting the inventory wrong — particularly the treatment of superannuation and jointly held bank accounts — is a common cause of requisitions in Melbourne applications.

How long a Melbourne grant takes

Once the 14 day advertising period has run and the application is filed on RedCrest-Probate, a straightforward Melbourne grant commonly issues within about four to eight weeks. Applications that draw a requisition, or that involve an informal Will, a missing executor or an estate where the entitlement is unclear, take longer.

Melbourne property in the estate

Where the estate includes a Melbourne property, the title dealing is lodged with Land Use Victoria after the grant issues. A property held as joint tenants passes to the surviving owner on a survivorship application, while a solely owned property or an interest held as tenants in common needs a transmission application before the executor can transfer or sell it. A Victorian conveyancer or property lawyer lodges these electronically.

If there is no Will

If the deceased left no Will, the next of kin applies for letters of administration rather than probate. The advertisement, RedCrest filing and Probate Office are the same; what changes is who is entitled to apply and who inherits. See our Victorian letters of administration guide.

Where we act around Melbourne

We act for executors across metropolitan Melbourne — the CBD and inner north, Fitzroy, Brunswick and Coburg, the inner east through Hawthorn, Camberwell and Box Hill, the bayside suburbs from Port Melbourne to Frankston, the south-east through Glen Waverley, Dandenong and Berwick, and the western suburbs from Footscray out to Werribee and Melton — as well as Geelong, the Mornington Peninsula and regional Victoria.