In Ontario yes — a surviving spouse may choose an equalisation payment instead of the will's gift, within six months of death.
The Canadian position
In Ontario yes — a surviving spouse may choose an equalisation payment instead of the will's gift, within six months of death.
Provincial law governs administration, so confirm the position where the estate will actually be administered.
The Islamic position
The fixed shares apply to the net estate after funeral expenses, debts and any bequest capped at one third.
Where a Canadian mechanism has no classical counterpart, treat it as a contemporary question for a qualified scholar.
Marriage in the classical law creates no community of property. A wife has a financial personality of her own — she may deal with the whole of her property for value without anyone’s permission, and the Kuwaiti Mawsu’a records that as agreed among the jurists — so her own assets, her earnings and her dower are hers and form no part of his tarikah, and a dower he never paid is a debt of his estate, met before the shares are worked out. Where the schools part is how completely the dower is hers: the Hanafi, Shafi’i and Hanbali schools call it a haqq khalis, a right belonging to her alone; the Malikis expressly deny that.
All four Sunni schools researched and sourced. Reviewed 2026-09-01. Full positions, evidence and sources — Marital property and the estate.
Related madhhab issue: What a husband and a wife inherit.
This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to a source below. Details change — check the original source before relying on any figure, fee or legal position. Anything under “further reading” is related material, not a source for what is stated here.
- Family Law Act, RSO 1990, c F.3 — Government of Ontario
- Grewal v. Litt, 2019 BCSC 1154 — CanLII
- Wills, Estates and Succession Act, SBC 2009, c 13 — BC Laws
- Canadian Legal Information Institute — CanLII
- Spousal trust ontario will surviving spouse — Treadstone Law
- Spousal trust surviving spouse remarries ontario — Treadstone Law
- Claim against sellers estate after death ontario — Treadstone Law
- Estate administration before death certificate ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law