What is Probate?

Information Directly from Ontario.Ca Apply for probate of an estate

When a person dies, they may leave behind belongings, real estate and other assets and liabilities, which is collectively called their estate.

In Ontario, an estate trustee is the only person with the legal authority to manage or distribute an estate.

Probate is a procedure to ask the court to either:

• give a person the authority to act as the estate trustee of an estate
• confirm the authority of a person named as the estate trustee in the deceased’s Will and
• formally approve that the deceased’s Will is their valid last Will

Apply for probate

If you need to apply for probate of an estate, you can apply to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee or for a Small Estate Certificate.

You can apply for a Small Estate Certificate if the estate is valued at up to $150,000. If the estate is valued at more than $150,000, you can apply for a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee. Learn more about how to apply for probate of a Small Estate.

This document explains how to apply for a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee.

Probate is not always required in order to administer an estate. The type of assets in the estate usually determine whether an estate should be probated. If the deceased owned real property or assets held by a financial institution, the estate normally must be probated.

Before applying for probate, you may wish to determine whether the person or financial institution holding the estate assets or requiring a payment or action by the estate requires you to obtain a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee or a Small Estate Certificate.

A person may apply for probate if:

• the deceased person died without a Will
• the deceased’s Will does not name an estate trustee
• a financial institution wants proof of a person’s legal authority to receive the money or investments of the deceased
• the estate’s assets include real property which does not pass to another person by right of survivorship
• the deceased’s real property must be sold (a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee or a Small Estate Certificate should be obtained before anyone enters into an Agreement of Purchase and Sale)
• there is a dispute about who should be the estate trustee
• there is a dispute or potential dispute about the validity of the Will
• some beneficiaries named in the Will are not able to provide legal consent

Before you start an application for probate, you may want to determine whether anyone else has already started a court application or has been issued a certificate. This can avoid the possibility that your application is rejected because another application was started or a certificate was already issued.

You can look into this by contacting the estate trustee named in the Will (if any) or the estate trustee’s lawyer (if any), relatives and friends of the deceased or by contacting the court office in the county or district where the deceased lived at the time of death. If the deceased was not living in Ontario when they died, you can contact the courthouse in the location where they owned Ontario property.