What is probate, and when is it required?
Probate is the court's confirmation of a will and the executor's authority. When banks and land registries demand it, what it costs in each province, and what genuinely skips it.
Probate is the court process that confirms a will is the deceased’s last valid will and that the executor named in it has authority to act. The court issues a certificate — a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee in Ontario, a grant of probate in BC and Alberta — and that piece of paper is what institutions actually trust.
Why it exists at all
Your executor walks into a bank with a will and a death certificate. The bank’s problem: is this will the last one? Was it revoked? Is this person really the executor? The bank cannot know — so for anything substantial it demands the court’s certificate instead of taking the risk. Probate is the system that converts “a document someone brought in” into “an authority everyone must accept”. Land registries are stricter still: transferring real estate held in the deceased’s sole name effectively always requires probate.
When it is required
There is no statutory threshold; it is driven by what the estate contains and what asset-holders demand. In practice:
Probate is effectively required when the estate includes real estate in the deceased’s sole name, significant bank or investment accounts (each institution has its own comfort level — commonly somewhere between $25,000 and $50,000), or any likelihood of dispute.
Probate is often skipped when the estate is small, or when everything passed outside the estate — joint property to the survivor, registered accounts and insurance to named beneficiaries. Many first-spouse-to-die estates probate nothing for exactly this reason.
What it costs
This is where the provinces diverge sharply:
| Ontario | British Columbia | Alberta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is called | Estate Administration Tax | Probate fees | Surrogate court fees |
| Threshold before anything is payable | $50,000 | $25,000 | None — $35 from the first dollar |
| Rate above the threshold | $15 per $1,000 (1.5%) of the value above $50,000 | $14 per $1,000 (1.4%) of the value above $50,000 | Flat band |
| Capped? | No | No | Yes — $525 |
| Authority | Estate Administration Tax Act, 1998 | Probate Fee Act, SBC 1999, c 4, s 2 | Surrogate Rules, Alta Reg 130/1995, Schedule 2 |
Worked example, a $600,000 estate: Ontario $8,250 · BC $9,850 + $200 filing · Alberta $525. Ontario and BC scale without a cap; Alberta’s flat schedule tops out at $525 regardless of size. Check any Ontario value with our probate fee calculator.
Add time: uncontested probate typically takes weeks to a few months depending on the court’s backlog, during which accounts are frozen.
Reducing what passes through probate
Legitimate and common: beneficiary designations on registered accounts and insurance, joint ownership with right of survivorship, and in BC and Alberta, multiple wills strategies for private-company shares (an Ontario staple too). Each has real trade-offs — tax, control, exposure to the joint owner’s creditors — covered in probate fees and how to reduce them.
- Estate Administration Tax Act, 1998, SO 1998, c 34
- Probate Fee Act, SBC 1999, c 4
- Surrogate Rules, Alta Reg 130/1995, Schedule 2
Checked against source on August 4, 2026. Legislation changes — if you are relying on a figure here for a decision, verify it against the statute. This is general information, not legal advice about your situation.