Rarely. Generic templates are built for equal division among children and have no way of expressing conditional fractional shares, exclusion rules, or a fallback if a share fails.
The Canadian position
A template will can be legally valid if properly signed and witnessed. Validity is not the problem. The problem is that the wording usually will not say what a faraid distribution requires.
The commonest template failures are bad witnessing, a missing residue clause, and vague wording that later needs a court application to interpret.
The Islamic position
Faraid shares are conditional on who survives. A daughter's share differs depending on whether a son survives; a mother's share differs depending on whether there are siblings. A template has no mechanism for that.
Six relatives can never be excluded from an estate outright — the father, the mother, the husband, the wife, the son and the daughter — and the Kuwaiti Mawsu’a records that by ijma‘. Everyone else can be. Exclusion comes in two grades: hajb hirman, being shut out completely, and hajb nuqsan, being moved from a larger fraction to a smaller one. Three rules do most of the work: a relative who reaches the deceased through another heir is excluded while that heir lives; the nearer of the same kind excludes the more remote; and the stronger blood tie excludes the weaker.
All four Sunni schools researched and sourced. Reviewed 2026-09-01. Full positions, evidence and sources — Hajb — when does one heir shut another out?.
Related madhhab issue: What a father and a mother inherit.
Directing an executor to 'distribute according to Islamic law' without stating the shares. That is the single most expensive sentence you can put in a Canadian will — it usually ends in a court application to determine what it means.
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.
- Succession Law Reform Act, RSO 1990, c S.26 — Government of Ontario
- Administering estates — Government of Ontario
- Locating wills and documents — Law Society of Ontario
- What happens if will not signed properly ontario — Treadstone Law
- Residue clause ontario will explained — Treadstone Law
- Is ontario will valid if signed by one witness — Treadstone Law
- Court order distribute missing beneficiary ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law