Wills & Estates
A Practical Sequence for BC Probate
Notice requirements, inventory valuations, probate fees, and registry filings, laid out in the order an executor meets them.
6 min read
Practice area
Wills & Estate Litigation
When a will seems unfair, or an estate is not being handled as it should be.
A parent has died, the will says something no one expected, or the executor is slow, silent, or treating the estate as their own. Families need to know quickly whether they have a claim worth pursuing.
British Columbia law gives a spouse or child left without adequate provision the right to ask the court to vary a will under the Wills, Estates and Succession Act. That claim has a hard deadline: it must be started within 180 days after the grant of probate or administration is issued in British Columbia, and served on the executor no later than 30 days after that period ends. A will can also be challenged for lack of capacity, undue influence, or defects in how it was made, and beneficiaries can hold an executor to account for how the estate is run.
Most estate disputes are family disputes first. I aim for resolution at mediation where that serves the client, and prepare every file on the footing that it may have to be decided by the court.
For executors handling a straightforward estate themselves, ProbateBuddy, a document preparation tool I am building, has a free BC probate fee calculator.
BC probate fee calculator on ProbateBuddy