Personal Assist
What is Personal Assist?
Personal Assist is designed to give you the peace of mind that your financial and property matters are in order, even if you can’t look after them yourself. It is a service tailored to your specific needs and can be used for a short period of time, for example if you are transitioning to a rest home or retirement village, or over the long term if you need ongoing assistance.
To get in touch about Personal Assist today, you can call us on 0800 371 471, or at Public Trust customer centre.
Why do you need it?
Here's how Personal Assist can help you:
Manage your finances without the worry - Personal Assist can protect you from financial abuse and allows you to remain independent without needing to rely on family and friends.
Free up your time to care for your loved one - not their financial affairs.
Focus on your health, well being and recovery while our dedicated advisers manage your finances.
Receive professional advice on moving to a retirement village or residential care and your eligibility for subsidies and other entitlements.
Spend time doing the things you enjoy and less time managing your affairs.
It can be hard telling your loved ones what you want when it comes to managing your property and financial matters. We've prepared some tips and tools for tackling the toughest of conversations.
How can we help?
When it comes to managing finances and property, you’ll have your own dedicated adviser who will manage and/or co-ordinate any services you ask us to provide – they will do as much or as little as you need. We also have lawyers, accountants and tax advisers on our team who can assist.
Personal Assist can assist with a range of financial and property matters.
Managing your financial matters
Day-to-day banking, paying bills and ad hoc expenses.
Preparing income tax returns, managing gifting programmes and selling assets, for example, a house or car.
Collecting pensions (in New Zealand and overseas), superannuation, interest, dividends, benefits and other income.
Providing assistance for claiming all benefit entitlements, managing insurance claims.
Ensuring finances are structured to meet your needs and living costs, managing mortgages and loans.
Maintaining your property
Maintaining regular and ad hoc maintenance and repairs as required.
Clearing out possessions, organising cleaning and home staging, liaising with real estate agents and other third parties.
Moving to a retirement village or rest home
Completing rest home agreements, applying for a Residential Care Subsidy or Loan, facilitating the purchase of a unit in a retirement village or co-ordinating the move into a rest home.
See how Personal Assist helped these families...
Lee and Xiu
Lee and Xiu were happily enjoying their retirement until, one day, Lee suddenly collapsed and was rushed to hospital. Xiu thought she’d just broken a few bones and would quickly recover, but in fact his wife was very sick and needed to live in a rest home. Xiu didn’t know how he was going to manage.
Marama and Bruce
Two years into retirement, it was time to see all those places they had dreamed about visiting while they were working. But who would look after their finances and property while they were away?
John and Bev
Bev thought everything was taken care of by her husband John, until one day, the electricity was disconnected because the bill hadn’t been paid. Bev didn’t even know which account the bills were paid from.
What does it cost?
Personal Assist is tailored to your individual needs, so the costs will depend on the services that you require. Come in for a free 1-hour consultation, and we can provide you with a cost estimate before you make any decisions.
Taking the next step
We'll meet with you to talk about your situation and how we can help. We offer a free, no-obligation consultation so you can find out if Personal Assist is for you.
When you're ready to take the next step, get in touch online to request more information or make an appointment, or call us on 0800 371 471.
Once we’ve agreed on what you would like us to take care of, you will need to sign two documents:
A letter of instructions setting out exactly what you'd like us to do for you.
An enduring power of attorney giving Public Trust the authority to act on your behalf in financial and property matters.
You're always in control and can change your instructions at any time.
