A Will, formally known as a last will and testament, is a legal document that describes your wishes regarding the distribution of your assets in the event you pass away. You are not legally required to have a will, but it’s strongly recommended that everyone have one in order to have their final wishes respected.

Planning ahead with respect to your personal affairs will provide peace of mind knowing your final wishes are represented and your family will not be subject to unexpected expenses and difficulty in having to handle your estate.

If you pass away without a Will, you are considered to have died intestate. In such situations, the courts, under the authority of Ontario's Succession Law Reform Act, determine how your assets will be distributed. This is not only a time-consuming process, but can (and often does) result in an outcome that isn’t inline with the deceased’s wishes.

As a Will dictates your final wishes regarding the distributions of your savings and property, it’s important that it contains all information necessary for managing your estate. Most wills include the following:

• the name of an executor (person who carries out your will);

• the name of a guardian(s) for minor children;

• details regarding gifts of money, personal property, or land;

• instructions regarding the remainder of your estate* and;

• Information regarding funeral arrangements, etc.

*Your will should include reference to all things that you own including pets, vehicles, jewellery, furniture, digital assets, and more.

Your will isn’t something you get and proceed to put away to collect dust for decades to come. Our lives are anything but static; things can change on a dime, and as we adapt to the new realities, our wills should too.

We encourage everyone to review their wills regularly to ensure that the document still reflects their situation and wishes.

According to the Ontario Government’s Steps to Justice website, it’s critical to review your will if:

• you go through a major life event, for example, you:

  • get married

  • separate or divorce from your spouse

  • start a common-law relationship

  • become a parent

• there are big changes in your financial situation

• your estate trustee's (executors) situation has changed or they've died

• you want to add or remove beneficiaries

For more information on when a will should be updated, visit the Ontario Government’s Steps to Justice website.

As a Will is an incredibly important document, people often think the best place to store it would be somewhere hidden, inaccessible, and only known to them. The main issue with this line of thinking is that it fails to consider one very important aspect: when a will is needed. As one’s will is only accessed upon their death, if the only person who was able to access the will was the will-maker (“testator”) themselves, that critical information is now lost. This creates a whole host of issues. See “what happens if I lose my Will” for more information.

Accordingly, in order to ensure the estate process runs as smoothly as possible, you should ensure that your Will is stored in a place that is safe (secure from fire/water damage/theft), accessible to your executor and known by others you trust.

Once you’ve determined where you will keep your Will, you should also ensure that all other important and relevant documents are stored along with it. This will make it easier to handle your estate when the time comes.

Examples of relevant documents include, but are not limited to: powers of attorney, living trusts, funeral wishes (if not stated in will), instructions for digital accounts (e.g., social media), etc.

If your original (non-photocopied) Will cannot be located upon your death, the courts, in accordance with Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure, will presume that it has been destroyed and consequently, consider you to have died intestate. In order to persuade the court to think differently, an application to “prove the will” must be brought forward — this process is formally known as Probate.

The Ontario Steps to Justice website has an entire section dedicated to answering this question. According to them, the process can be broken down into five steps: (1) Decide if you can do the job; (2) Make arrangements; (3) Probate the will; (4) Deal with assets and debts and; (5) Deal with the estate.

For detailed information on each of these steps, please visit the webpage.

While there is no strict timeline that must be followed regarding estate execution in Ontario, there is a general one-year rule that applies to most cases. This rule is referred to as the “executor’s year” and states that the executor has one year from the date of death or probate to finalise the estate (collect all assets, pay all debts and liabilities, and distribute entitlements to beneficiaries). Remember, this is the standard followed for the average estate, meaning that more complex estates could require more time.

Document notarization is the process whereby a notary public (licenced public officer) verifies the authenticity of a document and the signer/signature. Typically, a will does not need to be notarized. However, it is encouraged to have one of the witnesses complete (and swear to) an affidavit of execution in order to avoid potential issues concerning the validity of the will in the future. This document (Form 74D) can be downloaded from the Ontario Court Forms website.