Do Half-Siblings and Adopted Children Inherit Without a Will in Ontario?

Modern families are often not simple. A person may have half-siblings from a parent's other relationship, a child who was adopted, or a child born to parents who never married. When that person dies without a will, relatives understandably ask whether each of these relationships counts.

In Ontario, the Succession Law Reform Act sets out who inherits on an intestacy. Other statutes decide who counts as a child. This article explains how those rules fit together. It is general information, and individual family histories can raise questions worth confirming with a lawyer.

Half-siblings: the same as full siblings

Ontario does not rank half-siblings below full siblings. Half-blood relatives inherit equally with whole-blood relatives of the same degree, so half-siblings share equally with full siblings.

Siblings matter only when there is no spouse, issue or parent. In that case the estate goes to the surviving brothers and sisters equally. If a sibling died first, that sibling's share goes equally to their children, who are the deceased's nieces and nephews.

Adopted children and adoptive families

From the adoption order, an adopted child is the child of the adoptive parent and stops being the child of the former parent, except where that person is the adoptive parent's spouse. All relationships, including those with relatives, are determined on that basis for all purposes.

In practice, this generally means an adopted child is treated as a child of the adoptive family for intestacy, and the legal link to the birth parent ends unless the birth parent is the adoptive parent's spouse. It also affects relatives. An adopted child's adoptive siblings and adoptive grandparents are the relatives the law recognizes.

There is a timing exception. The adoption rule does not affect interests that had indefeasibly vested before the adoption order was made. If an adoption happened long ago and property rights were already fixed, the details matter and are worth confirming.

Children born outside marriage

A person is the child of their parents, and parentage is set by the Children's Law Reform Act, not by whether the parents were married. The Succession Law Reform Act also counts relationships traced through a person born outside marriage.

So a child born to unmarried parents is a child for intestacy purposes, and so are that child's own children, and relatives traced through them. If the deceased had such a child, that child shares equally with the others.

Timing and counting degrees of kinship

• Conceived before the death and born alive after it: these descendants and relatives inherit as if born in the deceased's lifetime and surviving them.
• Conceived and born after the death: such a descendant inherits only if the conditions in s. 1.1(1) of the Succession Law Reform Act are met.
• More distant relatives: where no closer relative exists, the estate goes equally to the next of kin of equal degree of consanguinity, without representation.
• Counting degrees: degrees are counted up from the deceased to the nearest common ancestor and then down to the relative.

One related point is easy to miss. A deceased child's share passes to their own issue, so grandchildren take their deceased parent's share. At the nephew and niece level, though, the estate goes equally to the nephews and nieces without representation, so a deceased niece's or nephew's children do not take that person's share.

What to do next

Whatever the family structure, the estate trustee is the only person with legal authority to manage or distribute an estate. With no will, the spouse or common-law partner usually has the first right to apply, and close adult relatives can apply after them. The court may appoint the relative it considers most appropriate.

• Draw a family tree that includes half-siblings, adopted children and children born outside marriage.
• Collect adoption orders, birth records and any court documents that show how each relationship is recorded.
• Check the date of any adoption, and whether any interest had already vested before it.
• Identify whether there is a spouse, child or parent, since siblings inherit only when none of them exist.
• Confirm who is entitled to priority to apply, and who will sign a Renunciation or Consent.
• Ask a lawyer to confirm the family tree before any distribution is made.

Frequently asked questions