‘Scandalous’: The fees that drained a disabled man’s income - and the dispute over his mother’s will

Saturday, 15 November 2025

In some years, Public Trust would charge more in fees for managing the finances of Brian Harkness than he received in income. Then, when his mother died, it challenged her will on his behalf, even though he was profoundly disabled and had no use for a large sum of money. It charged for everything. Tony Wall reports.

Raewyn Irwin was shocked by the fees Public Trust was charging for managing her disabled brother’s finances.

Brian Harkness, of Horowhenua, had been in residential care facilities since childhood, was non-verbal and severely autistic and had few needs besides toiletries and clothing.

His mother, Pearl Harkness, was his welfare guardian, but Public Trust was his property manager for 20 years and occasionally Irwin would see the financial statements it sent to her mother.

“Their fees were outrageous,” Irwin says. “They were doing the most simple job - he had non-complex needs, financially.

“They made a huge amount of money, for very little.”

The country’s largest provider of wills and estate administration services, Public Trust is Crown owned; over the past two years it has returned $2m and $2.25m to the Government - the first time it has returned dividends.

Stuff has revealed in a series of stories how families of vulnerable people have been surprised by new fees for the auditing of financial statements after the Government last year quietly dropped a subsidy it had been paying for many years.

Public Trust says it is mandated by law to carry out the audits and its fees are regulated.

It has apologised for aspects of its handling of Brian Harkness’ case.

Brian died in September last year, aged 61.

Public Trust was his property manager from 2004 to 2024, and represents roughly 1000 vulnerable New Zealanders through the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act.

A Stuff investigation has found that, in Brian’s case, the Public Trust charges were sometimes equal to, or more than, the total income he received after paying for his care home out of his disability allowance.

Statements show that in the 2016-17 financial year, Brian’s total income was $3895 - Public Trust charges were $3825; in 2018-19 his income was $3945 - Public Trust charges were $4970 and in 2021-22 his income was $3781 - Public Trust charges were $4286.

The charges weren’t always that high. The government subsidy that was in place at the time covered the property manager fees of anyone with assets of less than $20,000, and so when Brian’s savings were below that level, the bill was much less.

But Irwin says Public Trust often neglected to inform the family when his balance went above $20,000, if he’d received some interest payments, for example.

If it had let the family know, they could have spent some money on items for Brian to ensure his balance was below the threshold, Irwin says.

When she questioned what Public Trust was charging for, a manager explained in an email that the work included emails and phone calls to her and Brian’s care home, “phone visits to check in on Brian”, managing his insurance and processing his spending receipts.

Other fees were incurred for “topping up his comfort funds” and reimbursing Irwin for items she’d bought for her brother.

“It is worth noting that our … rates have increased this year in line with the economy,” the manager wrote in November, 2022.

“This would have contributed to our fees being higher than in previous years.

“However, if we are able to get Brian’s funds comfortably below $20,000, then these fees will be charged to the Ministry of Justice in future.”

Irwin believes the charges were unjustified for a “ridiculously simplistic” estate.

“They basically paid four bills a year for him, sometimes a reimbursement for me if I’d gone out and bought him clothes, or whatever.”

Public Trust spokesperson Georgie Hills says that as Brian’s property manager, it had a duty to act in his best interests.

Its property manager fees are charged at its standard ‘time in attendance’ rates, she says, “reflecting our legislative obligation to act as a commercial entity”.

“We appreciate these charges can feel especially challenging when assets are low and a person moves between different funding categories, but this is a reality of being a service provider for the government in an operating environment where there is not unlimited funding.”

Irwin says Public Trust made reimbursements over the years after she questioned Brian’s property manager fees, including $2600 in the 2022-23 financial year.

It recorded this as a “fee adjustment”, without further explanation.

Hills says billing practices have changed over the years. Some years, the company would have done the work and charged for it, then assessed eligibility for government funding and applied a credit where due.

She says Public Trust’s responsibility was to ensure that funds were used to meet Brian’s needs, and to protect his right to privacy.

“Having a court-appointed manager take care of this can feel like an imposition for some family members, but these rules exist to safeguard vulnerable people from being taken advantage of.”

Hills says Brian was directly charged $16,662 in total over the 20 years Public Trust was his property manager.

In January 2023, Pearl Harkness died, aged 90.

A few months later Irwin received an email from a Public Trust trustee advising that Brian’s property manager was considering a claim against Pearl’s will, which had also been drawn up by Public Trust.

The manager felt that Brian’s 15% share of the estate was unfair and that he should receive a third along with his two siblings.

“We were advised of this via email at 5pm on a Friday night from someone in Auckland,” Irwin says.

“We didn't understand … and the anxiety we felt that weekend was just not fair.

“I said to them, ‘Those were my mother’s wishes, you were with her when she wrote that’.

“I had to retain a lawyer … I didn’t know what rabbit hole we were going down with a challenged will. I was just petrified. It consumed my life for months.”

The trustee dealing with Pearl’s estate advised that the contesting of the will was likely to add to the cost of administering it and the original estimated cost of $10,500 to $12,000 was likely to rise.

He also noted that his charge-out rate was $381 an hour - higher than the previous person who dealt with Pearl’s case - and that would add to the cost.

Irwin says the family tried to explain to the property manager that the reason Brian had been left with a smaller share of his mother’s estate was that a larger sum of money would have been “absolutely no use to him”.

“Brian was very mentally disabled, he couldn’t speak, he just rocked back and forth. He would never have been able to be on his own.

“I don’t know what their logic was, it really was just a money making exercise.”

Hills says Public Trust made a claim against Pearl’s estate because parents have an obligation under the Family Protection Act to provide adequately for their children and Brian stood to inherit “significantly less” than his siblings.

“While we believed this was a necessary legal step to protect Brian’s interests, we are sorry this added to the family’s stress at an already difficult time.”

According to Irwin, Brian’s property manager went to visit Brian “to make sure he was as disabled as we were saying”.

“They’d been his property managers for so long at that point, I found that really insulting - that she had to drive out there to see Brian for herself.”

(Hills says visiting clients in person is standard and “helps us understand their immediate and future needs”.)

The Public Trust property manager team acknowledged in an internal email that formal legal proceedings would be “costly and time consuming” and it was keen to “work together to reach a resolution”.

In the end it was agreed that Brian would receive a six-figure lump sum instead of a third share.

“It probably worked out at 15% anyway, so all of this was in vain,” Irwin says.

Hills says: “The arrangement that was reached … was good for Brian.”

Public Trust’s final bill for settling Pearl’s estate was $17,000, including $1114 for “managing claims against the estate”, $3700 for “communications and meetings” and $2600 to “deal with estate assets and liabilities”.

“It should have really been the most simple estate,” Irwin says. “We’d already sold the house because she’d gone into a rest home, she had one bank account, no shares, there was nothing difficult about it.”

After her mother’s death, Irwin and her brother became Brian’s joint property managers, taking over from Public Trust.

“I wish I had cottoned on earlier and stepped in as property manager years earlier,” she says.

“I think most people wise up and realise that, actually, paying three to five thousand a year for [Public Trust] to do it is just absolute madness.”

According to Hills, Public Trust is “fully supportive' of family members carrying out the work.

“When someone who knows and deeply cares for a vulnerable person can manage their affairs, it’s the best possible outcome.”

After Irwin and her brother took over as managers, the bills kept coming.

Irwin says they submitted their first set of financial statements on behalf of Brian to the Family Court in mid-2024, and they were forwarded to Public Trust for auditing.

But the company didn’t examine the statements until after October 4, when the government subsidy stopped.

When Irwin complained about this, she was told by email the delay was due to a “large volume” of financial statements that Public Trust was receiving from the courts.

“We have a process of examining them in the order they are received,” a staffer wrote.

“I understand how frustrating it must be to feel that the examination … should have been quicker, but we followed our standard process.”

Hills says the company “understands the family’s frustration” at the fees that were incurred due to the delay.

“Unfortunately, Brian’s assessment was caught in the funding transition period, and the new regulated fees applied by the time our report was completed.”

Irwin says the payment reminders “came thick and fast”.

She says her property manager report could not have been simpler: “I submitted my … report with zero transactions, as I didn't have any access to Brian's bank account.”

Brian died in September of 2024; Irwin says she immediately notified the Public Trust manager who’d dealt with Pearl’s estate about his death.

But it appears he did not make a note in the system - a different employee reached out in November for information about Brian that Irwin didn’t hold, not realising he’d died.

Hills says the company accepts it should have handled this matter better. Not noting Brian’s death was an 'oversight … we have apologised directly to the family”.

Public Trust initially charged Brian’s estate $75 for requesting asset information it already held, but reimbursed the money and apologised after Irwin brought it to their attention.

The total bill for auditing Brian’s final financial statements came to $865.

Still the bills kept coming.

For settling Brian’s estate, Public Trust charged $1709, including $905 for “communications and meetings”.

Irwin says “it felt like we paid twice” as they were effectively distributing Brian’s share of his mother’s estate.

She says the experience of dealing with Public Trust was “horrible, it really was” and interfered with her grieving for her “precious mum” and brother.

Hills says the company is “committed to providing a great service and value for money and we are sorry Raewyn’s unhappy with her experience”.

“We don’t always get everything right, but when issues came up in our handling of Brian’s case, we acted quickly to sort it out.”

But Irwin advises anyone writing a will to do it through their lawyer instead.

“I just despair of Public Trust, I really do.”

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story said the Family Protection Act obliged parents to provide “equally” for their children, with that statement attributed to Public Trust spokesperson Georgie Hills. Hills later clarified the word was “adequately”, and the story has since been updated. (Amended 5.05pm on November 17).