A faraid distribution gives a daughter half a son’s share. Whether that can be challenged in British Columbia — and by whom — is the question every Muslim family planning an estate here should ask before signing.
The British Columbia position
| Item | British Columbia |
|---|---|
| Governing statute | Wills, Estates and Succession Act (WESA) |
| Court | Supreme Court of British Columbia |
| Handwritten (holograph) wills | Not valid as a category — BC requires wills to be signed and witnessed by two people. Section 58 gives the court a curative discretion to give effect to a non-compliant document, but that is a court application, not a right. |
| Probate cost | Roughly 1.4% on larger estates — charged in bands above a $25,000 threshold. [confirm against the statute] |
| Spouse’s share on intestacy | $300,000 where all children are also the spouse’s; $150,000 where they are not. [confirm against the statute] |
| Will registry | A government Wills Registry operated by the Vital Statistics Agency. Filing a wills notice costs about $17. It records where a will is, not the will itself. |
| Claims against the estate | Section 60 of WESA permits a spouse OR a child — including an independent adult child — to apply to vary a will that fails to make adequate provision. This is the broadest such regime in Canada. |
Who can bring a claim
- Dependants who were being supported and were not adequately provided for.
- Spouses, including through family-property entitlements that operate independently of the will.
- Adult children — in British Columbia specifically, even where independent.
Mirror wills left four daughters $150,000 each — 6.6% of a $9 million estate — with the residue to two sons. The distribution reflected the parents’ traditional cultural values. The court varied the wills and awarded the daughters 60% of the estate, holding that cultural or religious preference did not justify markedly unequal treatment of children. Any BC will distributing by faraid shares should be planned with this case in mind.
Reducing the risk
- Record the religious reasoning in a memorandum kept with the will.
- Provide for genuine dependants adequately, whatever the fixed shares say.
- Consider lifetime gifts and designations, which are harder to disturb — but take tax advice.
- Get provincial advice before signing. This is the clause that gets litigated.
Common questions
Can a will be challenged just because it follows Islamic shares?
Not on that basis alone. Claims succeed on statutory grounds — inadequate provision for a dependant, or in BC for a spouse or child — not because a distribution is religious.
Does writing down my reasons help?
It can. A memorandum explaining the reasoning is evidence a court may weigh, though in BC the Grewal decision shows cultural or religious reasoning is not by itself decisive.
Are lifetime gifts safer than bequests?
They are generally harder to disturb, but they carry immediate tax consequences and can still be examined. Take tax and legal advice before moving assets.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to one of the references below. Legislation and dollar thresholds change — verify against the primary source before relying on any figure.
- What to do when someone has died — Canada Revenue Agency
- Wills, Estates and Succession Act, SBC 2009, c 13 — BC Laws
- Probate fees by province / territory — TaxTips.ca
- Wills Registry — Province of British Columbia
- Grewal v. Litt, 2019 BCSC 1154 — CanLII
- Surah an-Nisa 4:11–12, 4:176 — Quran.com
- Book of Wills (Wasaya) — Sahih al-Bukhari, Sunnah.com
- Does mental incapacity affect will validity ontario — Treadstone Law
- Litigation 5 — Treadstone Law
- Can a beneficiary be a witness in ontario — Treadstone Law
- Litigation search target business ontario — Treadstone Law
- What happens to matrimonial home after separation — Treadstone Law
- Express entry dependants children — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law
- Religion by census metropolitan area, 2021 Census — Statistics Canada