Finding a Will in Prince Edward Island

This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.

A will nobody can find is, in practice, a will that does not exist. Here is how wills are located in Prince Edward Island, and what the law expects of an executor who cannot find one.

Where to look in Prince Edward Island

Item	Prince Edward Island
Governing statute	Probate Act and Wills Act
Court	Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island (Estates Section)
Handwritten (holograph) 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 cost	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.
Spouse’s share on intestacy	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.
Will registry	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.
Claims against the estate	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.

A diligent search

The deceased’s lawyer, and the firm’s successor if it has closed.
Safety deposit boxes at every bank they used.
Home safes, filing cabinets, and digital storage.
Will registries — government where one exists, private otherwise.
The provincial law society, which may hold records for a wound-up practice.

Presumed revoked

Where an original will was last known to be with the deceased and cannot be found, a court may presume it was destroyed deliberately — and administer the estate as an intestacy. Documenting the search is what rebuts that.

Why this is a religious question too

The hadith on wills speaks of the document being "kept ready with him" — findability is part of the obligation, not an administrative afterthought. Recording that a will exists, and where, is the gap the Islamic Will Registry exists to close.

Common questions

What if we cannot find the original?

A copy may be admissible, but where the original was last known to be with the deceased a court may presume it was destroyed deliberately and treat the estate as intestate.

Who is allowed to search for a will?

Typically the executor named in a will, or a family member applying to administer the estate.

Does registering a will make it valid?

No. A registry records that a will exists and where it is kept. Validity is a separate question governed by the province's formal requirements.

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.

Legislation & government sources

What to do when someone has died — Canada Revenue Agency
Probate fees by province / territory — TaxTips.ca

Islamic primary sources

Surah an-Nisa 4:11–12, 4:176 — Quran.com
Book of Wills (Wasaya) — Sahih al-Bukhari, Sunnah.com

Demographics

Religion by census metropolitan area, 2021 Census — Statistics Canada