- An RRSP or a TFSA lets the account holder name a beneficiary who receives the proceeds directly on death, bypassing the estate and probate entirely.
- The outcome depends heavily on how the account was set up: - Joint subscribers with survivorship rights — common for married or common-law parents who set up the RESP together — mean the…
- If the RESP forms part of the deceased's estate, which, absent a surviving joint subscriber, it generally does, its value is treated the same way any other estate asset is: it's included…
Registered Education Savings Plans get lumped in with RRSPs and TFSAs in a lot of people's minds — registered accounts that skip the estate entirely and go straight to whoever's named. With an RESP, that assumption is often wrong, and it catches families off guard right when they're trying to figure out how to keep a child's education savings intact.
This article explains why an RESP doesn't work like an RRSP when the account holder dies, whether it counts toward your probate estate value, and what typically happens to it next.
RESPs Don't Work Like RRSPs or TFSAs
An RRSP or a TFSA lets the account holder name a beneficiary who receives the proceeds directly on death, bypassing the estate and probate entirely. An RESP is structured differently. The person who opens and contributes to an RESP is the subscriber — they own the plan and control it. The child the plan is meant to benefit is the intended recipient of future education payments, but that child isn't the plan's owner, and generally isn't a "beneficiary" in the same legal sense that term is used for an RRSP or a life insurance policy.
Because an RESP typically doesn't support the same kind of death-beneficiary designation, the ordinary probate-avoidance route that works for other registered accounts generally doesn't apply here.
What Happens to an RESP When the Subscriber Dies
The outcome depends heavily on how the account was set up:
- Joint subscribers with survivorship rights — common for married or common-law parents who set up the RESP together — mean the RESP generally continues under the surviving subscriber, without needing to pass through the deceased subscriber's estate.
- A sole subscriber means the RESP generally becomes an asset of the deceased's estate. The estate trustee then has to deal with it, much like any other financial account the deceased solely controlled, subject to whatever specific requirements the RESP's financial institution (the "promoter") has for transferring or continuing the plan.
Because the specific handling can vary by financial institution and how the plan was originally structured, it's worth confirming directly with the RESP promoter what they'll require from the estate.
Is the RESP Included in Estate Administration Tax Value?
If the RESP forms part of the deceased's estate, which, absent a surviving joint subscriber, it generally does, its value is treated the same way any other estate asset is: it's included when calculating the value the estate uses for Estate Administration Tax and probate purposes, and it generally can't be transferred or accessed without going through the estate trustee, the same way a bank account without a named beneficiary would be handled.
This is the detail that surprises people most: an account set up entirely for a child's future education still runs through the same probate process as the rest of the estate if there's no surviving joint subscriber to take it over directly.
What This Means for the Named Child
The child for whom the RESP was opened doesn't lose their connection to the plan automatically, but they also don't step in and take control of it the way a named RRSP beneficiary would. Instead, the estate trustee, often working with the child's other parent or guardian, decides what happens next: whether to keep the RESP going for the child's eventual education, arrange for a new subscriber to take it over if the RESP promoter allows that, or wind it up as part of settling the estate.
Steps an Estate Trustee Should Take
- Identify every RESP the deceased held, including plans they may have set up years earlier and not mentioned recently.
- Confirm the subscriber structure — sole or joint — since this determines whether the plan passes through the estate at all.
- Contact the RESP promoter directly to find out their specific requirements for a sole-subscriber account after death.
- Include the RESP's value in the estate's overall accounting, consistent with how other financial accounts are treated, if it forms part of the estate.
- Coordinate with the child's other parent or guardian on whether continuing the RESP is realistic and desired, since the estate trustee generally isn't making an educational decision in isolation.
Frequently asked questions
Can I add my spouse as a joint subscriber now to avoid this problem later?
This is a legitimate planning question worth raising with a lawyer, since it depends on your specific family and account structure, but it's exactly the kind of proactive step that can avoid the estate complications described here.
Does the government grant portion of an RESP get affected if the subscriber dies?
Government grant money inside an RESP has its own rules, separate from the estate law questions this article covers, and those rules are best confirmed directly with the RESP promoter or the relevant government program rather than assumed.
What if there are multiple children named on one family RESP?
The same basic principle applies regardless of how many children are named. The question is still about who the subscriber was and whether the plan had a surviving joint subscriber, not about how many children benefit from it.
Should I name a successor subscriber in my will?
This is worth discussing with your lawyer when you make or update your will, particularly if you're the sole subscriber on an RESP and want to control what happens to it rather than leaving the outcome to your estate trustee's discretion.
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