When to be SURE to update your will – another scary story

This is the second day of Make-a-Will Month. When someone says some things never die, whoever “they” are can’t have been talking about wills, certainly not in Canada.  Wills can, in fact, “die” and this can have deadly outcomes.  ​A horror story as told to me:  Once a widow and widower married, looking forward to many happy years together. In love, both were healthy. Updating their wills wasn’t the first priority after embarking on their new life together.
 
Then the fickle fingers of fate snapped just like that. A short while after the wedding, the wife died. What the couple almost certainly didn’t know is that in some Canadian jurisdictions the will a person wrote before marriage is revoked upon marriage.  Tying the knot can make existing wills null and void.

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What this meant in this case was that the wife died intestate – as if she had no will. Her assets, according to intestacy laws, went to her husband. This still could have been OK if he had understood what this meant and changed his will to respect her will’s bequests to her daughters by her first marriage, some charities, a few others. But he didn’t get the chance before he in turn died a few months later.
 
This meant he also died intestate and under intestacy law both his and his second wife’s assets went to his adult children.  Even at this point it could have been OK, but the man’s children, not respecting what his likely intentions were, refused to transfer his wife's assets to her daughters and other beneficiaries.
 
In some Canadian jurisdictions, getting married automatically revokes any will written prior to marriage.  This means not just someone’s second marriage, but marriage period. Marriage in B.C., Ontario, Saskatchewan, Quebec, and Yukon does not revoke a will; marriage in Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, and Prince Edward Island revokes a will “unless it was made in contemplation of marriage” – updating to a post-wedding will before actually being married – or met limited other criteria.
 
Even here, be careful. While this list shows Ontario does not revoke a will, this is limited to marriages occurring on or after January 1, 2022.  It’s not retroactive and so doesn’t apply to people already married before that date. Unless they have an existing will made in contemplation of marriage or wrote a will after that date, they’ll be considered not to have a will and intestacy law will apply even if they still stand by their wishes as expressed in an otherwise duly executed will. Also, a few words can make all the difference, explains estate litigator Trevor Todd (https://lnkd.in/gJCVFVPv).
 
TODAY’S NUDGE:  if you know of someone getting married (or if, in Ontario, they were married before 2022), make sure they are aware of what the law where they live says about former wills.
 
TODAY’S ENTREATY:  Officiants and other marriage celebrants, please bring this information to the attention of those you are joining in matrimony before it’s too late.
 
Today’s image?  Charles Dickens, author of the poem about some things that never die https://lnkd.in/geyMaqZf).