Being named estate trustee is not an honour with a title attached. It is a job with a legal standard, and one where getting the order of operations wrong can cost you personally.
Our wills & estates work starts at $563.87, taxes included and published on our pricing page. Disbursements and government fees are extra and billed at cost.
The sequence matters more than most executors realise. Secure the assets and the property. Locate the will. Identify and value everything the deceased owned and owed as at the date of death. Determine whether probate is required. Notify the institutions and government departments involved.
Then pay the debts and the taxes — and only then distribute what is left to the beneficiaries.
The single most common and most expensive error is distributing early. An estate trustee who pays out beneficiaries before debts and taxes are settled can find themselves personally responsible for the shortfall.
An estate trustee owes duties to the beneficiaries and to the creditors of the estate. That is the source of the exposure, and it is real.
A clearance certificate from the Canada Revenue Agency exists precisely to address it, confirming that the taxes have been dealt with before the estate is distributed. Skipping it to move faster is a false economy.
Keeping proper accounts from day one is the other protection. Where beneficiaries do not consent to the accounts, the route is a court application to pass them — and reconstructing records at that point is far harder than keeping them.
An estate trustee may be entitled to compensation for the work. It is either approved by the beneficiaries or fixed by the court on a passing of accounts. It is not something an executor simply decides and takes.
Where there are co-executors who disagree, or beneficiaries who object, those are exactly the situations where early advice is cheaper than late advice.
Yes. Distributing before debts and taxes are settled is the classic route to it. A CRA clearance certificate is the standard protection.
No. A named estate trustee can renounce, provided they have not already begun to act — which is a reason to take advice before doing anything.
Secure the assets and locate the will. Do not distribute anything, and do not close accounts, before the picture is established.
You may be entitled to compensation, approved either by the beneficiaries or by the court on a passing of accounts.
Keep proper accounts and take advice early. Where consent is not forthcoming, the accounts are passed before the court.
Government sources for this topic. Rules change — confirm the current position before you rely on it.
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