You met later in life. You both brought children, a mortgage or two, and a fair bit of history. Somewhere in a drawer there is a will you wrote before any of it, and every time you think about updating it you hit the same knot: how do you look after your partner for the rest of their life and make sure your own children eventually get what you intended?
If that sounds familiar, you are in good company. At the 2021 Census, 12% of Australian couple families with dependent children were step families or blended families — around 182,000 step families and another 100,000 blended families.
The good news: it's a solvable problem — just not with a one-page will and a hope that everyone will be reasonable.
Why "we'll just leave everything to each other" often fails
It's the most common plan in blended families, and it sounds generous. You leave everything to your partner, your partner leaves everything to you, and whoever survives leaves the lot to "the kids".
Here is the difficulty. Once you have died and your partner owns everything outright, they can do whatever they like with it. They can write a new will. They can remarry — and in most Australian states marriage revokes an existing will unless it was made in contemplation of that marriage. None of this requires bad intentions; it just requires time, and one of you will probably outlive the other by a decade or more.
The other thing worth knowing: how you own your home matters more than your will does. If you own the family home as joint tenants, your share passes automatically to the survivor on your death — the will never touches it. If you own it as tenants in common, your share is yours to deal with in your will. Many blended-family plans come undone because nobody checked which applies; your conveyancer or the state titles office can tell you in minutes.
Your super doesn't follow your will either
Superannuation is not an estate asset. It is held in trust, and where it goes is decided by your fund's trustee or by a valid binding death benefit nomination — not by your will. In a blended family that is either your best tool or your biggest blind spot.
Tax makes it sharper. A super death benefit paid to a death benefits dependant — a spouse or de facto partner, a child under 18, or someone financially dependent or in an interdependency relationship with you — is paid tax-free. Paid to an adult child who was not financially dependent on you, the taxable component is taxed: the Australian Taxation Office's current withholding schedule for 2025–26 sets a maximum of 17% on the taxed element and 32% on the untaxed element, both including the Medicare levy. A non-dependant also can't take the benefit as an income stream; it has to be a lump sum.
So a $400,000 super balance left to your partner arrives whole, while the same balance left to your adult children may arrive tens of thousands lighter. That isn't a reason to change who you look after. It is a reason to decide deliberately which pot goes to whom — super to the partner, other assets to the children, say — rather than letting the split happen by accident.
Four structures that actually hold
These are the tools your solicitor will reach for. None is exotic; all need proper drafting.
A right to reside, or a life interest. Your will gives your partner the right to live in the home for their lifetime (or until they remarry, or move into aged care — you choose), after which the house passes to your children. Your partner keeps their home. Your children keep their inheritance. The will should spell out who pays rates, insurance and repairs, and whether the home can be sold and replaced with a smaller one.
A testamentary trust. Instead of assets going directly to a person, they go into a trust created by your will, with a trustee you choose and rules you set. Useful when you want income to go one way and capital another, or when a beneficiary is young or unwell.
Separate pots, deliberately assigned. Often the cleanest answer is the simplest: the house and super to your partner, an investment property, share portfolio or life insurance policy to your children. Everyone gets something definite rather than a promise about later.
Mutual wills — with caution. A contract between you and your partner that neither will change their will after the first death. It does what it says, but it is rigid, and can lock the survivor out of sensible changes for decades. Get advice first.
Being honest about who might contest
Every state and territory lets certain people apply to a court for provision from an estate if they feel they weren't adequately provided for. In New South Wales, eligible people include a spouse, a de facto partner, a child, a former spouse, and someone wholly or partly dependent on the deceased who was a member of their household — and a claim must be made within 12 months of the death. Categories and time limits differ by state, which matters if you own property across borders.
Stepchildren sit in an awkward spot. In several states they are not automatically eligible and must prove dependency or household membership — which cuts both ways.
The practical protection isn't secrecy. It's a will that clearly shows you considered everyone, a written note of your reasons kept with it, and — where you can manage it — a conversation with the adult children while you are alive. As Noel Whittaker has long argued, the estates that end up in court are rarely the ones where everybody knew the plan in advance.
If you're behind, or it all feels too hard
Most people start not from a careful plan but from an old will and a vague intention. That's normal. Three things this month will put you ahead of nearly everyone.
Check how your home is owned — joint tenants or tenants in common. Check your super nomination, and whether it is binding, non-binding or lapsed (many lapse after three years). And write down in plain words what you want to happen for your partner and for each of your children. That page is what a solicitor needs to give you a will that holds.
Then watch for the events that quietly undo a plan: a marriage or divorce, the sale of a property, a partner moving into aged care, or a change of super fund. Any of those is a reason to read your will again rather than assume it still says what you meant.
Estate planning in a blended family is where good intentions meet technical detail, and the detail is where things go wrong. Wills, Death & Taxes Made Simple walks through wills, life interests, testamentary trusts, binding nominations and the tax on super death benefits in plain language — so you can walk into a solicitor's office knowing what to ask for. It's $22.95, in PDF and EPUB, and you can buy direct from the author.
This article is general information only and doesn't take account of your personal circumstances. Figures are current at time of writing and change each financial year. Consider seeking advice before acting.