Get legal clarity on setting up a charity subsidiary in New Zealand

This consultation is often useful where an existing charity is considering a separate entity for trading activity, service delivery, asset holding, fundraising initiatives or risk separation. It can also help where the board is unsure whether a subsidiary is the right structure at all. Rather than jumping straight into documents, the consultation helps clarify the purpose of the new entity, how control would work, and whether the proposed arrangement makes sense from a governance and operational perspective.

The discussion usually covers why the subsidiary is being considered, what activities it will carry on, how it will relate to the parent charity, who will govern it, and what documents are likely to be required. We can also talk through registration issues, constitutional settings, director or committee overlap, and practical concerns around control and accountability. The aim is to give you a clearer legal roadmap. If substantial drafting or implementation is needed afterwards, that would be a separate piece of work.

It helps to have a short outline of your current charity structure, the reason for the proposed subsidiary, the activities it may undertake, and any early thinking on governance. Existing rules, constitutions, trust deeds or board papers can also be useful if they affect the proposed arrangement. If there are funding, operational or stakeholder constraints driving the decision, mention those too. The more concrete the factual context, the more specific the advice can be about structure, documentation and next steps.

Not always in a simple yes or no way. The right approach depends on your charity's objectives, the proposed activities, governance preferences and the factual context. In some cases a subsidiary is sensible, while in others a different structure or internal change may be more appropriate. The consultation is there to test the idea against the legal and practical realities, identify the main risks, and help you understand what would be involved if you decide to proceed.

No. This consultation can cover likely registration or regulator considerations at a high level, but it does not include promise approvals, ongoing representation or full implementation support unless we agree that scope with you upfront. It also does not include tax advice. If your proposed subsidiary raises more involved filing, registration or governance issues, we can outline what extra work may be required and provide a separate quote for that next stage.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Charity Subsidiary Set Up service, pricing starts from $2,000.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.