Can an Executor Hire a Lawyer or Accountant Using Estate Funds in Ontario?

Many first-time executors assume that if they need professional help settling an estate, they will have to pay for it themselves. That is usually not the case. Hiring a lawyer with estate funds is not just permitted in Ontario — it is normal and often expected, because administering an estate involves legal and financial complexity most people have never dealt with before.

That said, "the estate pays for it" is not an unlimited rule. What the estate can properly cover, and what an executor may have to pay personally, depends on whose interest the work actually serves.

Why Estates Routinely Pay for Professional Help

An estate trustee (the modern legal term for an executor) is a fiduciary, not automatically a lawyer or accountant. The role often requires applying for a court certificate, filing tax returns for the deceased and the estate, interpreting will provisions, valuing assets, and resolving disagreements among beneficiaries. Ontario law does not expect an executor to have those specialized skills personally — it expects them to administer the estate properly, which often means bringing in professionals and paying for that help from estate assets.

What Typically Counts as a Legitimate Estate Expense

Costs incurred to identify, gather, protect, and properly distribute estate assets are generally proper charges against the estate. Common examples include:

• Legal fees to prepare and file a probate application
• Accounting fees to prepare the deceased's final tax return and any estate tax returns
• Legal advice interpreting an ambiguous or poorly drafted will
• Legal or accounting help responding to a beneficiary dispute about the estate's administration
• Professional appraisals needed to value estate assets

Estate Pays vs. Executor Pays Personally

The dividing line is whose interest the professional work serves. Fees that help administer the estate properly are estate expenses. Fees that exist to protect the executor personally, or to advance the executor's own interests as a beneficiary, are a different matter and may not be reimbursable from estate funds.

How This Actually Works Day to Day

Once an executor has authority to act — either under the will itself or once a court certificate has issued, if one is needed — they typically open an estate bank account and pay ongoing administration expenses, including professional invoices, from that account rather than from their own funds. Every payment should be documented, because an estate trustee has an ongoing fiduciary duty to keep proper accounts and records of everything paid out of the estate.

It is worth noting that paying a lawyer or accountant for estate work is entirely separate from executor compensation. Under the Trustee Act, an executor may be entitled to a "fair and reasonable allowance" for their own time and effort administering the estate, fixed by the court or set out in the will. That compensation is personal to the executor. Professional fees paid to third-party lawyers and accountants are a completely different category of expense.

When Fees Get Reviewed

If beneficiaries question whether professional fees charged to the estate were reasonable or properly incurred, that scrutiny typically happens through a passing of accounts — a court process where the estate trustee's financial administration, including every expense paid, is formally reviewed. Keeping clear invoices, engagement letters, and a record of why each professional was retained makes this process far easier if it ever arises.

Frequently asked questions