How to Complete an Advance Care Directive Without a Lawyer in South Australia
You Don't Need a Lawyer — But You Do Need to Get the Procedure Right
South Australia's Advance Care Directive is designed for individuals to complete themselves. The Advance Care Directives Act 2013 doesn't require a solicitor's involvement at any stage. You download the free SA Health ACD form, fill it in, have it witnessed by an authorised person, and it's legally valid. Private Adelaide estate-planning firms charge $495 to $1,430 for a complete advance care document set — but the legal validity of the document doesn't depend on whether a lawyer prepared it.
Where DIY completions fail isn't the form. It's the execution. The three most common reasons self-completed ACDs are set aside or ignored in clinical settings are vague treatment instructions that don't qualify as binding refusals, incorrect signing sequences that invalidate the entire document, and disqualified witnesses that void the witnessing. All three are preventable if you follow the right procedure.
The Five Stages of a Valid DIY Completion
Stage 1: Choose and Coordinate Your Substitute Decision-Makers
Before you touch the ACD form, decide who you're appointing as SDMs. Under the 2024 amendments, you can appoint up to four SDMs in sequential order — your first-preferred decision-maker, then backups in order of priority.
Each SDM must:
- Be over 18 and have decision-making capacity
- Not be a paid professional carer, doctor, nurse, or the Public Advocate
- Understand and accept the appointment before you sign the ACD
The critical procedural point: every named SDM must complete and sign their acceptance section of the form before you sign in front of your witness. If you sign first and the SDMs sign later, the entire ACD is invalid. This isn't a soft guideline — it's a statutory requirement under the Advance Care Directives Regulations 2014.
For families with SDMs in different cities, this means posting or scanning the form for each SDM to sign their section, collecting the completed sections, and only then proceeding to the witnessing appointment.
Stage 2: Draft Your Treatment Provisions
This is where most self-completed ACDs break down. The Act creates two categories of provisions:
Binding provisions (refusals of healthcare) — these are legally enforceable. A treating doctor must follow them, subject to specific exceptions like the 2024 suicide and self-harm override. To qualify as binding, your refusal must specify the treatment you're refusing and the circumstances in which the refusal applies, in language a clinician can act on without interpretation.
Non-binding provisions (values and wishes) — these guide decision-makers but don't legally compel them. Statements like "I value quality of life over quantity" or "I don't want to be a burden" fall here. Clinicians and SDMs must have regard to these, but they can override them based on clinical judgement.
The difference between binding and non-binding often comes down to drafting precision:
- ❌ "No heroic measures" → non-binding (too vague for clinical action)
- ❌ "No life support if there's no hope" → non-binding (subjective — what constitutes "no hope"?)
- ✅ "I refuse cardiopulmonary resuscitation in specified clinical circumstances" → a specific treatment refusal; to be binding, it must identify the circumstances in which it applies
Writing these provisions correctly without a lawyer is possible, but it requires understanding the specific medical interventions you're addressing — CPR, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition and hydration, dialysis, blood transfusion, and antibiotics in terminal illness. The South Australia Advance Directive & Living Will Kit includes a Treatment Decision Worksheet that provides pre-drafted refusal wording for each intervention, formatted so you can adapt it to your preferences and copy the final language onto the SA Health form.
Stage 3: Verify and Secure Your Witness
The Act restricts who can witness your ACD. Your witness must be one of the following:
- Justice of the Peace (JP)
- Legal practitioner
- Registered health practitioner (doctor, nurse, pharmacist, psychologist)
- Registered social worker
- Police officer
- Teacher registered with the Teachers Registration Board of SA
And your witness must not be:
- A named SDM in your ACD
- A family member (spouse, domestic partner, parent, child, sibling)
- A beneficiary under your will
- Your treating health practitioner
- A staff member in a position of authority at your residential aged care facility
The most common witness disqualification: using a GP who is also your treating doctor. They're technically an authorised class (registered health practitioner), but the Act disqualifies the health practitioner currently responsible for your care. You'd need a different health practitioner.
If you're in a regional area, your nearest JP may be the only accessible option. Confirm they meet none of the disqualification criteria before scheduling the appointment.
Stage 4: Execute the Signing Ceremony
The signing appointment has a specific order that must be followed:
- Confirm all SDM acceptance sections are already completed and signed
- Present the completed Information Statement to the witness (the Act requires the appointer to have received this before signing)
- You (the appointer) sign the ACD in the physical presence of the witness
- The witness signs their section, certifying they observed your signature and are satisfied you appeared to understand the nature and effect of the directive
If an interpreter assisted, they sign their section after you and before the witness.
There's no remote witnessing provision for ACDs in South Australia. You and the witness must be physically present in the same room.
Stage 5: Distribute and Store
An ACD that nobody can find during an emergency is functionally useless. After execution:
- Upload to My Health Record — this is the most reliable way to ensure emergency clinicians can access your directive. Log into your My Health Record account and upload a scanned or digital copy.
- Give certified copies to your SDMs — each SDM should have their own copy, along with clear instructions on when and how to present it to treating clinicians.
- Provide a copy to your GP — they'll add it to your medical file, which is the first place a hospital contacts for patient information.
- Keep the original in a known, accessible location — not a bank safe deposit box (inaccessible after hours and during weekends, which is when most emergencies happen). A fireproof home safe or a clearly labelled folder in your home filing system.
- Consider a wallet card — a small card in your wallet noting that you have an ACD, where the original is stored, and your first SDM's contact details.
What a Lawyer Adds (and When You Actually Need One)
A solicitor adds value in specific circumstances:
- Contested capacity — if there's any doubt about whether you have decision-making capacity (early dementia, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury), a solicitor can arrange a formal capacity assessment and certify the process
- Complex family dynamics — if you expect your ACD to be challenged by family members, professional drafting and a solicitor's involvement in witnessing adds evidentiary weight
- Integrated estate planning — if you're completing an ACD, EPA, and will simultaneously and your assets are significant, a solicitor ensures all three documents work together without gaps or contradictions
- Business interests — if you're a business owner and your ACD could affect decisions about medical treatment that has implications for business continuity
For the majority of South Australians — those with straightforward family structures, clear treatment preferences, and modest estates — a self-completed ACD using the free SA Health form, guided by a structured kit like the South Australia Advance Directive & Living Will Kit, produces a document that's as legally valid as one drafted by a solicitor.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is a self-completed ACD less legally valid than one drafted by a solicitor?
No. The Advance Care Directives Act 2013 doesn't distinguish between ACDs based on who prepared them. A self-completed ACD that follows the correct procedure — SDM acceptances before signing, authorised and non-disqualified witness, clinically precise treatment provisions — has the same legal force as one drafted by a $1,400 solicitor.
What if I make a mistake on the form?
If a mistake is significant — wrong SDM details, incorrect witness category, missing signature — the safest option is to start with a fresh form. The Act doesn't have a formal correction process for executed ACDs.
Can I update my ACD later without a lawyer?
Yes. You can revoke or replace your ACD at any time while you have decision-making capacity. To revoke without replacement, you sign a revocation form in front of a witness. To replace, you complete a new ACD using the same process — the new ACD automatically revokes the old one. You must then notify everyone who holds a copy of the revoked directive.
Do hospitals actually check for ACDs before treating me?
In an acute emergency, clinicians will treat first and check for directives as soon as practically possible. For planned procedures or non-emergency admissions, hospitals routinely ask about advance care directives during intake. The strongest safeguard is uploading your ACD to My Health Record — it can make the directive accessible to treating clinicians and interstate hospital networks when they can access the record.
What happens if my ACD contradicts what my SDM wants to do?
Your binding provisions override your SDM's preferences. If you've refused CPR in specified circumstances and your SDM asks the hospital to resuscitate you, the hospital must follow your directive, not your SDM's request. Your SDM's role is to make decisions about matters you haven't specifically addressed in the ACD, or to interpret your non-binding value statements in light of the specific clinical situation.
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