Dying without a will in Prince Edward Island hands the distribution to a statutory formula. For a Muslim family this is the single most common way an estate ends up divided contrary to faraid.
What Prince Edward Island does
| 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. |
Why it does not match faraid
Provincial intestacy schemes are built around the surviving spouse and descendants. Faraid distributes more widely — parents take a share alongside children, and siblings can inherit in their own right. Three mismatches recur:
- Parents. Under faraid each parent generally takes one sixth where the deceased left children. Provincial intestacy usually gives parents nothing while a spouse and children survive.
- The spouse’s portion. Faraid fixes a wife at one eighth with children; a preferential share can hand a spouse the great majority of a modest estate.
- Sons and daughters. Provincial law divides equally among children; faraid gives a son twice a daughter’s share.
| Position | Hanafi | Maliki | Shafi’i | Hanbali |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share of a daughter | Half a son’s share | Half a son’s share | Half a son’s share | Half a son’s share |
| Wife, with children | One eighth | One eighth | One eighth | One eighth |
| Wife, no children | One quarter | One quarter | One quarter | One quarter |
| Husband, with children | One quarter | One quarter | One quarter | One quarter |
| Husband, no children | One half | One half | One half | One half |
| Bequest cap (wasiyyah) | One third | One third | One third | One third |
| Bequest to a fixed heir | Needs heirs’ consent | Needs heirs’ consent | Needs heirs’ consent | Needs heirs’ consent |
| Distant kin (dhawu al-arham) | Inherit | Classically to the treasury | Classically to the treasury | Inherit |
| Surplus returned (radd) | Yes | Classically no | Classically no | Yes |
None of this is fixed by intention. Only a valid will — that can be found — changes the outcome.
A worked example: a $600,000 estate
Take a man who dies leaving a wife, two sons, one daughter and his mother, with a net estate of $600,000 after debts and funeral expenses. Here is what Prince Edward Island does if he left no will, and what faraid does.
Under Prince Edward Island intestacy law
| Heir | Basis | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Spouse | Takes the entire estate where all children are also the spouse’s; otherwise a preferential share applies first | Most or all |
| Mother | Nothing while a spouse and children survive | $0 |
| Each child | Equal shares of whatever remains — sons and daughters alike | Equal |
Exact figures depend on the provincial threshold and on whether all children are also the surviving spouse’s. Confirm against the statute.
Under faraid
| Heir | Qur’anic share | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Wife | One eighth | $75,000 |
| Mother | One sixth | $100,000 |
| Son (each of two) | Residue, two shares | $170,000 |
| Daughter | Residue, one share | $85,000 |
His mother receives nothing under the provincial formula and $100,000 under faraid. Provincial intestacy schemes are built around the spouse and descendants; they do not recognise a parent’s fixed share at all while a spouse and children survive. No amount of intention changes this — only a valid will does.
Figures are rounded to whole dollars and illustrate the structure only. Real estates involve debts, taxes, designations and jointly held property that change the arithmetic substantially.
Common questions
Do common-law partners inherit?
It depends on the province, and the differences are large. Some provinces treat a qualifying common-law partner as a spouse for intestacy; Ontario does not.
Do my parents inherit if I die without a will?
Generally not, if you leave a spouse or children. This is one of the sharpest departures from faraid, where each parent normally takes one sixth where the deceased left children.
Does an intestate estate get divided equally between sons and daughters?
Yes — provincial law divides equally among children. Faraid gives a son twice a daughter's share.
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.
- What to do when someone has died — Canada Revenue Agency
- Probate fees by province / territory — TaxTips.ca
- Surah an-Nisa 4:11–12, 4:176 — Quran.com
- Book of Wills (Wasaya) — Sahih al-Bukhari, Sunnah.com
- Religion by census metropolitan area, 2021 Census — Statistics Canada
- Per stirpes distribution intestacy ontario — Treadstone Law
- Preferential share spouse intestacy ontario — Treadstone Law
- Holograph handwritten will ontario — Treadstone Law
- What is preferential share ontario intestacy — Treadstone Law
- Intestacy spouse one child ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law