The Handwritten Will Found in a Drawer After Probate Began

The situation

Arman had spent four decades building a modest portfolio of commercial real estate around Leamington before retiring in his late seventies. He had a formal will, drafted with a lawyer in 2015, that named his two children, Parisa and Yasmin, as co-executors and divided the estate between them roughly equally. Everyone assumed that document would govern when he died.

Parisa, herself a commercial landlord who managed several retail and industrial properties, began the process of locating the 2015 will and filing for probate — the court process in Ontario where the Superior Court issues a certificate of appointment of estate trustee, confirming a will is valid and authorizing someone to act as executor. She had a copy of the will and believed the process would be routine given the estate's size, valued at roughly $3.6 million once the commercial properties, investment accounts and a paid-off house were totalled.

Six weeks into settling her father's affairs, while clearing out a desk in his home office, Parisa found a sealed envelope in a locked drawer. Inside was a single handwritten page, dated eighteen months after the 2015 will, signed by Arman, stating that he wanted Parisa to be his sole executor and to receive one of the commercial buildings outright before the rest of the estate was divided. It was not witnessed. It did not mention Yasmin by name except to say the remainder should be split fairly between his children.

What we found when we looked closer

Parisa brought both documents to our office before filing anything further with the court. The central question was whether the handwritten page was a valid will at all, and if so, whether it replaced the 2015 will entirely or only in part.

Ontario law recognizes two ways to make a valid will. The first is a formal will, signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses who also sign it. The second is a holograph will, which is entirely in the testator's own handwriting and signed by them, with no witnesses required at all. Arman's drawer document was handwritten from top to bottom and signed, which meant it met the basic requirements of a holograph will under the Succession Law Reform Act, the Ontario statute governing wills and estates.

That created a genuine conflict. A validly executed later will generally revokes an earlier one, either entirely or to the extent the two are inconsistent. The 2015 will divided the estate roughly equally between Parisa and Yasmin and named both as co-executors. The holograph will named only Parisa as executor and carved out one specific commercial property for her before any division of the rest. Read literally, the holograph will did not say it revoked the 2015 will outright — it read more like an update layered on top of it, which is common in handwritten notes people intend as amendments rather than complete replacements.

That ambiguity mattered a great deal in dollar terms. The commercial building named in the holograph will was worth roughly $1.1 million on its own. If the holograph will controlled in full, Parisa would take that building outright and then split a smaller residue with Yasmin, leaving Yasmin with meaningfully less than an equal half of $3.6 million. If the 2015 will controlled instead, the two would split the full estate closer to evenly, with Parisa's share coming in at roughly $1.7 million to $1.8 million rather than closer to $2.4 million once the standalone property was factored in.

What we did

1. Confirmed the holograph will's validity before relying on it. We reviewed the handwriting against samples of Arman's writing from other documents, confirmed the date and signature were consistent, and assessed whether he had the mental capacity and freedom from pressure needed to make a valid will at the time he wrote it. Nothing in the file suggested otherwise, but this step is essential before treating any late-discovered document as controlling — a holograph will found after someone dies invites scrutiny precisely because there are no witnesses to vouch for the circumstances of its signing.
2. Advised against filing for probate on the 2015 will alone. Parisa had nearly completed her probate application before the second document surfaced. Filing it and later having to correct the court record with a newly discovered will would have meant delay, extra cost, and a harder conversation with Yasmin once the first application was already in motion. We paused the filing until both documents could be reconciled.
3. Set out the interpretation problem in plain terms for both siblings. Because the holograph will did not clearly say whether it replaced the 2015 will or simply added to it, either reading was legally arguable. We explained to Parisa, and through her lawyer to Yasmin, that resolving this through litigation would mean asking the Superior Court to interpret the deceased's intentions from a single ambiguous page, a process that typically takes well over a year and consumes a meaningful share of the estate in legal costs on both sides.
4. Proposed a negotiated division instead of a court application to interpret the will. We worked out a compromise position: Parisa would receive the commercial property named in the holograph will, consistent with her father's clear and specific handwritten wish, and would be sole executor as he had written. In exchange, the estate would pay Yasmin an equalization payment out of the residue before final distribution, bringing her total closer to what she would have received under the 2015 will's equal split, though still somewhat less.
5. Negotiated the specific equalization figure with Yasmin's counsel. After several rounds of discussion, the estate agreed to pay Yasmin roughly $400,000 from the residue in addition to her share of what remained after Parisa's specific property was set aside. This left Parisa with the building plus her portion of the residue, totalling roughly $2.1 million, and Yasmin with roughly $1.5 million, a gap narrower than a literal reading of the holograph will would have produced, and one both siblings accepted as reasonable given the uncertainty either side faced in court.
6. Filed the probate application on the holograph will, with the settlement documented separately. Once both siblings signed a settlement agreement, we filed for the certificate of appointment naming Parisa as sole estate trustee based on the handwritten will, attaching an affidavit addressing the existence of the 2015 will and explaining why it was not being submitted as the operative document. The settlement agreement itself was kept as a private contract between the siblings rather than filed with the court, since the estate was not in litigation.

The outcome

The Superior Court issued the certificate of appointment naming Parisa as estate trustee roughly four months after the holograph will was found, a timeline stretched somewhat by the need to address the earlier will in the application materials. Parisa took over the commercial building her father had specifically named for her and managed the remaining properties through the estate before final distribution.

Neither sibling got everything they might have argued for. Yasmin's roughly $1.5 million share was less than a strict equal split of $3.6 million would have produced, and less than what a court might have awarded her if a judge had found the holograph will did not revoke the equal division in the 2015 will. Parisa's roughly $2.1 million share was less than the outright building plus a full remaining share the holograph will's literal wording could have supported. Both accepted a result in between because the alternative was a year or more of litigation, legal costs that would have come out of the same estate, and a real chance either sibling could have done worse than the negotiated figures. The compromise preserved their relationship and closed the estate within a year of Arman's death, which is faster than many contested estates manage.

What you can learn from this