Is there a difference between escheat and 'bona vacantia' for an Ontario estate with no heirs?

The two terms describe closely related ideas, but Ontario law today uses "escheat" as the operative concept, governed by the Escheats Act, 2015, for property - including estate property - that ends up with no owner because no eligible heir exists. "Bona vacantia," Latin for "ownerless goods," is an older common-law term for the same general problem and is still used in some other jurisdictions, including parts of the UK, as their formal statutory label.

In practical terms, for an Ontario estate, what matters is the Escheats Act framework: if a person dies without a will and without anyone entitled to inherit under the SLRA's intestacy rules, the property vests in the Ontario Crown, administered through the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee. You may still see "bona vacantia" used loosely, or in older materials, to describe this same outcome, but it isn't the term Ontario's current legislation uses.

For a family wondering whether a relative's estate might end up in this position, the distinction in terminology matters less than the underlying question: has every possible heir under the SLRA's rules actually been ruled out through a genuine search?