Islamic Wills in Prince Edward Island

Making an Islamic will that works in Prince Edward Island

An Islamic will is not a separate legal instrument. It is an ordinary Prince Edward Island will whose distribution clauses set out the faraid shares. Two things have to be right at once: the fractions, and Prince Edward Island’s formalities.

Handwritten wills: Not recognised as a general category. PEI requires a will to be in writing, signed at the foot by the testator (or by someone else in the testator's presence and by their direction), with the signature made or acknowledged before two witnesses present together, who then attest and subscribe in the testator's presence. There is only a narrow exception for a member of the Canadian Armed Forces on active service, or a mariner/seaman at sea, who may make a will by unwitnessed signed writing. Separately, a 'substantial compliance' curative provision lets the Estates Section validate a signed-but-not-fully-compliant document (which would include a signed handwritten document lacking witnesses) if it embodies genuine testamentary intent — so an informal handwritten will is not automatically valid, but is not automatically void either; it needs a court application.

Probate: Flat fees by probate-value band up to $100,000, then a modest percentage above that, with no cap: up to $10,000, $50; $10,001–$25,000, $100; $25,001–$50,000, $200; $50,001–$100,000, $400; over $100,000, $400 plus $4 for every $1,000 (or part) in excess of $100,000 — 0.4% at the margin. On a $500,000 estate that is $400 + (400 × $4) = $2,000; on a $1,000,000 estate, $400 + (900 × $4) = $4,000. This is among the lowest probate-fee regimes in the country, well below Ontario's 1.5% or Nova Scotia's ~1.7% marginal rate.

If you die without a will in Prince Edward Island

PEI has NO preferential dollar share at all — unusual among the provinces checked so far, which all set some fixed amount (however small) that the spouse takes off the top. Instead, PEI's Probate Act splits the whole estate by fraction from the first dollar: with a surviving spouse and one child, the spouse takes one-half and the child one-half; with a spouse and more than one child, the spouse takes one-third and the children divide the remaining two-thirds by stocks (per stirpes); with a spouse and no issue, the spouse takes the entire estate. A surviving spouse who is cohabiting in a conjugal relationship with someone else at the intestate's death loses their share. The Act does not define 'spouse' and contains no common-law/cohabitant extension, so on its face it means a legally married spouse only.

That distribution is set by statute and it will not match the faraid shares. How Prince Edward Island’s intestacy rules diverge from faraid ›

Can the will be challenged?

Dependants of a Deceased Person Relief Act claims — but the class of people who can claim is narrower than a plain reading of the Act's name suggests, and narrower than Nova Scotia's or New Brunswick's equivalents. 'Dependant' is limited to: the surviving spouse; a child under 18; a child 18 or over who cannot earn a livelihood because of mental or physical disability; a grandparent, parent, or descendant who was actually financially dependent on the deceased for the 3 years before death; or a divorced former spouse who was actually financially dependent on the deceased for the 3 years before death. An able-bodied independent adult child has NO claim under this Act at all.

Challenging a will in Prince Edward Island ›

Finding a will in Prince Edward Island

No general public will registry — but two narrower government mechanisms exist and should not be conflated with one. (1) Part VII of the Probate Act establishes a statutory registration system for 'international wills' (wills made in the special form under the Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will); PEI lawyers who act on an international will must report it monthly for entry in the system. This is real, but almost no one uses the international-will form, so it does not compete with a general will-search product. (2) Separately, for $10, anyone can file and register an ordinary will with the Estates Section registry without applying for probate — but nothing in the Act allows a living testator to do this pre-death, and no PEI government source describes a facility for lodging a will for safekeeping before death, so this does not function as a pre-death findability tool either.

How to search for a will in Prince Edward Island ›

Prince Edward Island’s cities

What differs between them is not the law — that is the same across Prince Edward Island — but the community layer: which mosques can perform a janazah, and where they bury.

• Green Meadows — 0 janazah providers of 0 mosques, 1 organisation listed

The fixed shares

The fractions come from Surah an-Nisa and do not vary by province. Calculate them for your family, or read where the four schools differ.