New rules around ‘double-dipping’ in Maori land inheritances following whangai adoptions now limit the ability to inherit from both a birth parent and a whangai parent, overriding past Maori Land Court practice which assumed it was a whangai adoptee’s birthright to retain inheritance rights through their birth parents despite being raised by non-biological parents in a Maori customary whangai adoption.
Rules in place since 2021 now require proof of iwi or hapu custom allowing double dipping.
Maori Land Court was asked to rule on rights to inherit Maori land following the 2018 death of Coralie Haronga where, amongst her eight children, one was adopted out in an informal whangai adoption and three were formally adopted out in statutory Adoption Act adoptions.
Coralie did not leave a will following her 2018 death.
Default rules governing Maori freehold land meant the property now passed in equal shares to her children. Adoption status for four of her children created legal doubts over who inherited.
Elder daughter Lorraine had been adopted out in an informal whangai adoption.
Her daughter Ayla Murphy applied to the Maori Land Court to be included as part-owner of her late grandmother’s land, claiming descent through her mother Lorraine.
A preliminary legal question was whether Lorraine herself was entitled to inherit.
Judge Stone ruled daughter Lorraine could not share in ownership of Maori freehold land owned by her mother Coralie; there was insufficient evidence of hapu custom provided to the court as to whether it was past practice to allow whangai adoptees to enjoy customary inheritance rights over birth parents’ land.
With Lorraine having no proved right to inherit, her daughter Ayla similarly had no right to inherit.
The court was told Lorraine has inherited her whangai mother’s land interests.
Judge Stone ruled the three children adopted out through Adoption Act adoptions could not inherit shares in their birth mother’s land.
Effect of an Adoption Act adoption is to deem adoptive parents to be the child’s parents; any legal relationship to birth parents is cut.
As an exception, Te Ture Whenua Maori Act does allow Adoption Act adoptees to inherit Maori land from a biological parent when their birth siblings, otherwise entitled to inherit, agree to their inclusion.
In this case, the Maori Land Court allowed one of Coralie’s three adopted children to take a share of her birth mother’s land, as agreed by all her birth siblings who were entitled to inherit by right.
The end result: ownership of Coralie Haronga’s freehold Maori land passed to five of her eight children.
Murphy v. Ihaia-Thompson – Maori Land Court (13.08.26)
26.230