Wills and estates lawyers in Surrey help you plan ahead, or settle an estate after a death

What does an estate plan in BC actually include?

A BC estate plan usually rests on three documents, sometimes four: a will for after death, an enduring power of attorney for your finances if you lose capacity, a representation agreement for health and personal care decisions, and a trust where a will alone can't give the control you need.

• Will: names your executor, divides your estate and can appoint a guardian for young children. It has no effect until death.
• Enduring power of attorney: lets someone you choose manage your money and property, including through incapacity, until death.
• Representation agreement: names someone for health and personal care decisions when you can't, often alongside an advance directive.
• Trust: property a trustee holds for beneficiaries on your terms, written into a will or set up during life.

What happens in BC if someone dies without a will?

When someone dies without a will in BC, Part 3 of WESA decides who inherits. A surviving spouse comes first and shares with any descendants. With no spouse or descendants, the estate moves outward to parents, then siblings and their children, then more distant relatives. Someone must also apply to court to administer it.

With a spouse and descendants, the spouse takes a preferential share and half the remainder; the descendants share the other half. The preferential share is smaller if some descendants are not also the spouse's, and the spouse has added rights over the spousal home. With no relative within the Act's reach, the estate goes to the province.

WESA ranks who may apply to administer: the spouse, then a child with the consent of most of the children, then other heirs, and finally anyone the court considers suitable, including a creditor. With no will there is no trust, so a minor's share is generally held by the Public Guardian and Trustee until the age of majority.

How do you list and value assets and debts for an estate?

List every asset and debt, with where it is held, how it is owned and what it is worth. The list serves twice: while you are alive, it is the inventory for drafting a will that fits; after a death, the executor values each item at the date of death for the probate filing.

Those values go on the affidavit of assets and liabilities in a probate application, at fair market value. For someone who lived in BC, it covers land and belongings in the province and financial assets wherever held; land outside BC is left out.

• Land: market value at death. BC Assessment is a starting point; an appraisal is safer when the assessment is out of step with the market. Registered mortgages and charges reduce the value that counts.
• Accounts and investments: the date-of-death value, confirmed by each institution; private company shares need a valuation.
• Vehicles and belongings: second-hand value, not replacement cost.
• Debts: list them all, though only charges registered against BC land reduce the value the probate fee is based on.
• Outside the estate: joint tenancy property, and RRSPs, RRIFs, TFSAs and life insurance with a living named beneficiary. These usually stay out of the probate filing; the Wills page has more.

What do probate and estate terms mean in BC?

BC estate law uses the vocabulary of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act, which replaced the Wills Act and the Wills Variation Act, among others, when it came into force on 31 March 2014. Older wills still say testator, executrix or letters probate. Below are the terms courts, banks and the Land Title Office use now.

• Will-maker: the person making the will (older wills: testator or testatrix).
• Personal representative: an executor or administrator, whoever has authority to administer the estate.
• Executor: the personal representative a will names (older wills: executrix).
• Administrator: a personal representative the court appoints when there is no will or no named executor can act.
• Beneficiary: a person or charity entitled to something from the estate.
• Residue: what is left after debts, expenses, taxes and specific gifts.
• Intestacy: dying without a valid will, or with one that doesn't dispose of everything.
• Grant of probate: the BC Supreme Court document confirming a will and its executor's authority.
• Grant of administration: the court document appointing an administrator, with will annexed or without a will.
• Trustee: someone holding property for beneficiaries under a trust.
• Attorney: the person an enduring power of attorney appoints for money and property; not necessarily a lawyer.
• Representative: the person a representation agreement appoints for health and personal care decisions.
• Spouse under WESA: a married spouse, or someone in a marriage-like relationship with the deceased for at least two years. Separation can end that status before any divorce; our guide to your will after separation explains how.

How do your home's title and your relationship agreements affect your estate plan?

Two things outside your will can override it: how your home is registered on title, and any marriage or cohabitation agreement you have signed. Title decides whether the home passes under the will at all, and an agreement can commit you to what you leave a spouse. A will drafted without seeing both can contradict them.

Joint tenancy carries a right of survivorship: the surviving owner takes the whole property, whatever the will says. A tenancy in common share passes under the will. If a title names co-owners without saying which, BC law presumes tenancy in common. The title transfers page covers changing how a home is held.

A marriage or cohabitation agreement can say what each spouse leaves the other, keep separate property for children of an earlier relationship, and address wills variation claims. Courts weigh those terms, though they don't automatically bar a claim, so the will and the agreement should match.

Someone has died. Where do you start?

Start by finding the original will and ordering a wills search from the Vital Statistics Agency, which shows whether a wills notice was filed and where the will was said to be kept. Then secure the home, vehicles and valuables. Hold off on paying out or giving away anything until the executor's authority is confirmed.

Check the deceased's papers, any safety deposit box and the lawyer or notary who drew the will, and keep receipts for everything you pay. Executors should read the help for executors page next, then the probate page.