Should You Name a Different Executor for Your Business in Your Ontario Will?

If you own a business — incorporated or not — one of the quieter questions in drafting your will is whether the same person should handle everything, or whether your business deserves its own estate trustee. Ontario law doesn't require one approach over the other. It's a judgment call, and the right answer depends on the business, the people in your life, and how much you trust any one person to handle both sides well.

This article walks through the tradeoffs so you can have a more informed conversation with whoever helps you draft your will.

Two Basic Structures to Choose Between

Structure 1 — One estate trustee for everything. A single person (or set of co-executors acting together) is responsible for your entire estate: personal assets, the family home, and the business, all under one authority and one set of accounts.

Structure 2 — Separate estate trustees for personal and business assets. One person (or team) handles personal assets while a different person — often chosen specifically for business or industry experience — is named as estate trustee over the business assets alone, sometimes through a secondary will structure carved out for that purpose.

Neither structure is legally required. The Succession Law Reform Act allows a testator broad flexibility in how they structure their will and who they appoint, provided the will itself is validly signed and witnessed.

When One Executor for Everything Tends to Work

• The business is small, simple to value, and likely to be wound down or sold quickly rather than operated long-term by the estate.
• You have one person — a spouse, adult child, or trusted friend — who is both organizationally capable and reasonably comfortable with financial matters, even if they aren't a business specialist.
• Keeping everything under a single set of estate accounts and a single decision-maker reduces coordination friction and cost.
• Your business and personal finances are closely intertwined, making a clean split artificial.

When a Separate Business Executor Tends to Make Sense

• The business is operationally complex — employees, contracts, ongoing client or patient relationships, inventory, or a professional licensing structure.
• Your intended personal-assets executor has no business background and would reasonably struggle to run or wind down a company under time pressure while grieving.
• You want someone with specific industry knowledge — a long-time business partner, a senior employee, or an accountant familiar with the company — making decisions about the business specifically.
• There's potential for conflict of interest if the same person is dividing both business value and personal assets among beneficiaries with different interests in each.

Comparing the Two Approaches

How to Decide: A Short Process

1. List what the business actually needs on your death — will it be sold, wound down, or kept running by a family member? The more active management required, the stronger the case for a dedicated business executor.
2. Identify who in your life has relevant judgment — not necessarily formal expertise, but sound judgment about the specific business (a longtime co-owner, an experienced employee, an accountant who already understands the numbers).
3. Be honest about your intended personal-assets executor's comfort level with business decisions under pressure. A capable, trusted person for personal matters isn't automatically the right person for business ones.
4. Consider whether a secondary will structure — separating probate-required assets from business assets that generally don't require probate — makes sense alongside the executor decision, since the two questions are often addressed together.
5. Talk it through with a lawyer who can draft clear, non-overlapping authority for each executor if you choose the split structure, so they aren't left arguing about who decides what.

Frequently asked questions