Islamic Wills in Ontario

Making an Islamic will that works in Ontario

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

Handwritten wills: Valid

Probate: Estate Administration Tax: nil on the first $50,000, then about $15 per $1,000 of value above that (roughly 1.5%). A Small Estate Certificate is available for estates of $150,000 or less.

If you die without a will in Ontario

$350,000 for deaths on or after 1 March 2021 ($200,000 before that date).

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

Can the will be challenged?

Dependant support claims under Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act. Ontario does not have a BC-style wills variation regime for independent adult children.

Challenging a will in Ontario ›

Finding a will in Ontario

No central, searchable government registry of wills. The Superior Court registrar’s office is a statutory depository where a living person may deposit a will for safekeeping (Estates Act, s. 2), but it is a per-registry deposit facility, not a province-wide index that can be searched on death — which is the gap a private registry fills.

How to search for a will in Ontario ›

Ontario’s cities

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

• Mississauga — 9 janazah providers of 16 mosques, 30 organisations listed
• Scarborough — 6 janazah providers of 15 mosques, 24 organisations listed
• Ottawa — 5 janazah providers of 11 mosques, 25 organisations listed
• Brampton — 4 janazah providers of 10 mosques, 19 organisations listed
• Etobicoke — 4 janazah providers of 12 mosques, 15 organisations listed
• North York — 3 janazah providers of 13 mosques, 17 organisations listed
• Toronto — 3 janazah providers of 15 mosques, 17 organisations listed
• Hamilton — 2 janazah providers of 6 mosques, 11 organisations listed
• London — 2 janazah providers of 6 mosques, 11 organisations listed
• Cambridge — 2 janazah providers of 5 mosques, 8 organisations listed
• Markham — 2 janazah providers of 2 mosques, 4 organisations listed
• Windsor — 1 janazah provider of 4 mosques, 9 organisations listed
• Ajax — 1 janazah provider of 3 mosques, 8 organisations listed
• Vaughan — 1 janazah provider of 4 mosques, 7 organisations listed
• Pickering — 1 janazah provider of 4 mosques, 6 organisations listed
• Oshawa — 1 janazah provider of 3 mosques, 5 organisations listed
• Waterloo — 1 janazah provider of 2 mosques, 4 organisations listed
• Burlington — 1 janazah provider of 2 mosques, 3 organisations listed
• Guelph — 1 janazah provider of 2 mosques, 3 organisations listed
• Niagara Falls — 1 janazah provider of 1 mosque, 3 organisations listed
• St. Catharines — 1 janazah provider of 1 mosque, 2 organisations listed
• Thornhill — 1 janazah provider of 2 mosques, 2 organisations listed
• Wilmot — 1 janazah provider of 1 mosque, 1 organisation listed
• Oakville — 0 janazah providers of 4 mosques, 12 organisations listed
• Richmond Hill — 0 janazah providers of 4 mosques, 6 organisations listed
• Kitchener — 0 janazah providers of 3 mosques, 5 organisations listed
• Peterborough — 0 janazah providers of 0 mosques, 1 organisation listed
• Stoney Creek — 0 janazah providers of 0 mosques, 1 organisation listed
• Amherstburg — 3 listed; we have not yet confirmed a burial anchor here, so there is no city page
• Milton — 9 listed; we have not yet confirmed a burial anchor here, so there is no city page
• Whitby — 4 listed; we have not yet confirmed a burial anchor here, so there is no city page

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.