Probate is Prince Edward Island’s process for confirming a will and authorising someone to act. It does not decide who inherits — it authorises the person who gathers and distributes.
Cost and process 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. |
What the executor has to do
- Locate the original will and confirm it is the latest one.
- Apply to the court for authority to act.
- Identify and secure the assets; notify institutions.
- Pay funeral expenses, debts and taxes — including the deemed disposition on death.
- Obtain a CRA clearance certificate before distributing.
- Distribute, and account to the beneficiaries.
An executor who distributes before debts and taxes are settled, or who fails to search properly for a will, can be held personally responsible. This is the reason a documented search matters.
The Islamic order of payment
Classical fiqh sets the same sequence Canadian administration follows in practice: funeral expenses first, then debts, then the wasiyyah up to one third, then the faraid shares. An unpaid mahr ranks as a debt of the estate, ahead of any bequest or inheritance.
Common questions
How long does probate take?
Commonly several months to over a year, depending on the court's backlog, the complexity of the estate, and how quickly a CRA clearance certificate is issued.
Can the funeral be paid before probate?
Usually yes. Most financial institutions will release funds from the deceased's account for funeral expenses specifically, which matters given how quickly a janazah takes place.
Does every estate need probate?
No. Estates consisting only of jointly held property and assets with named beneficiaries may avoid it entirely. That is avoidance of PROBATE; whether those assets also fall outside the faraid shares is disputed among contemporary scholars, and several fatwa bodies say it does not.
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
- Preferential share spouse intestacy ontario — Treadstone Law
- Holograph handwritten will ontario — Treadstone Law
- Do small estates need probate ontario — Treadstone Law
- What is preferential share ontario intestacy — Treadstone Law
- Intestacy spouse one child ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law