Guides
Guides to execution requirements, drafting statutory declarations and affidavits, remote witnessing by audio-visual link, and who may witness your document in each Australian jurisdiction.
Looking for the law in one state? The jurisdiction guides set out the Act your document is made under and who may witness it.
What makes a document validly executed
Almost every document that must be witnessed in Australia turns on the same four elements. Get them right and the form matters less than people think; get one wrong and the document can be refused whatever else it says.
1 articleDrafting and making a statutory declaration
A statutory declaration is a written statement of fact that the maker declares to be true, under legislation that makes a false declaration an offence. Most of what goes wrong with them goes wrong before the witness is ever involved.
4 articlesDrafting and swearing an affidavit
An affidavit is evidence. That single fact explains nearly every rule about how one must be drafted, and nearly every reason paragraphs get struck out of one.
1 articleAffidavits and statutory declarations in New South Wales
New South Wales has the most prescriptive rules of any Australian jurisdiction, and the clearest permanent regime for witnessing by audio-visual link. Both are worth understanding properly.
1 articleWitnessing documents by audio-visual link
Witnessing by video link is permanently authorised in most of Australia and authorised nowhere in two states. The patchwork is a direct legacy of how each jurisdiction handled 2020, and it has not been tidied up since.
2 articlesWho may witness your document
The class of people who may witness your document is set by the law the document is made under, and the classes are not uniform. Choosing someone outside the class is one of the few defects that cannot be argued around.
1 articleAttaching material to a witnessed document
Exhibits and annexures are not the same thing, they are not attached the same way, and getting it wrong is among the most common reasons an affidavit comes back from the registry.
Read the guideExecution of deeds and agreements
A deed is executed differently from a contract, and a company executes differently again. Witnessing a deed is attestation of execution, not the administering of an oath, and the rules that apply to it are not the rules that apply to a declaration.
Read the guideHave a document ready to witness?
An Australian legal practitioner, on a video call, in about ten minutes.