Where to store your will (and where not to)

The signed paper original of your will is the legally operative document. A copy — even a perfect scan — generally cannot be probated without a court fight. So storage is not an afterthought; it is part of the plan.

The two rules

1. It must survive. Fire, flood, moves, decades.
2. It must be findable. Your executor needs to know where it is and be able to get it without your help. A will that was last seen in your possession and cannot be found after death is legally presumed destroyed — that is, revoked.

Every option below is a trade-off between those two.

The options, ranked

A fireproof document safe at home. Cheap, findable, under your control. Buy one rated for paper, keep it somewhere sensible, and tell your executor where the key or code is. For most people this is the right answer.

Your lawyer’s vault. If a lawyer drafted or reviewed your will, most firms store the original free. Very safe; slightly less findable decades later if the firm merges or closes. Record the firm’s name with your executor.

Court deposit. Ontario allows you to deposit your will with the Superior Court for safekeeping for a small fee; some other provinces have equivalents. Extremely safe, rarely used, and your executor must know it is there.

A drawer, a filing cabinet, “with the important papers”. Where most wills actually live. Fine for findability, poor for fire and flood — at minimum, move it into a sealed envelope inside something fire-resistant.

Registries: making it findable

British Columbia has an official wills registry — you can file a Wills Notice with the BC Vital Statistics Agency recording where your will is (not the will itself), and probate searches check it. Ontario and Alberta have no government registry; the private Canada Will Registry serves a similar findability function. None of these stores your will or affects its validity — they only point to it.

What EstateCanvas stores

Your generated documents stay in your account for re-download, and your estate record — assets, liabilities, contacts, documents — can be shared read-only with your executor. That solves the “what did they own and who do I call” problem. The signed paper original is still yours to store; tell your executor where.