Month: June 2026

They Trusted You. The Court Will Judge You.

admin Executor and Estate Administration , , , , ,
Woman sitting at a kitchen table reviewing estate documents and receipts, looking concerned

What Will You Actually Be Judged On? The Executor Standard Most People Have Never Heard Of

A friend of mine once described agreeing to be someone’s executor the way most people do: “They asked. I said yes. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

That’s the whole conversation for most named executors. Someone they loved asked them to take on the role, and they said yes out of loyalty, trust, or simple affection. What they didn’t know, and what almost no one tells them, is that the moment they accept, they step into a legal framework that holds them to a specific standard of conduct. One they’ve probably never heard of. One they can be personally liable for failing to meet.

This isn’t meant to scare anyone. But if you’ve been named as an executor, or you’re thinking about saying yes, the single most important question you can ask yourself is this: what will I actually be judged on?

The Standard Has a Name

In Canadian law, executors are held to the standard of a reasonably skilled person acting in a fiduciary capacity. That phrase carries a lot of weight.

“Reasonably skilled” doesn’t mean you need a law degree or an accounting designation. But it does mean you’re expected to make sound, informed decisions, seek professional help when the situation calls for it, and not act carelessly just because you’re volunteering your time.

“Fiduciary capacity” is the bigger piece. A fiduciary is someone who is legally required to put the interests of others ahead of their own. As an executor, you’re not managing the estate on your own behalf. You’re managing it on behalf of the beneficiaries. Your personal opinions about who deserves what, your own financial interests, and your relationships with certain family members cannot factor into your decisions.

Together, these two ideas form what’s sometimes called the executor standard. It isn’t a checklist someone hands you at the funeral. It’s a legal expectation that runs across everything you do from the moment you begin administering the estate.

What the Standard Actually Covers

Courts and legal commentators generally look at a few key areas when evaluating whether an executor has met their obligations.

Prudent decision-making. An executor is expected to act the way a reasonable, careful person would. That means not rushing, not delaying unnecessarily, and not making decisions based on what’s easiest or most convenient. If you’re unsure about something, the standard expects you to find out.

Impartiality toward beneficiaries. This one trips people up. If your best friend named you executor and their estranged sibling is a beneficiary, you can’t let your personal feelings influence how you handle distributions. Every beneficiary is entitled to fair treatment, regardless of your history with them or your relationship with the deceased.

Record-keeping. You need to be able to account for every dollar that moves through the estate. What came in, what went out, when, and why. Courts can ask you to pass your accounts, meaning you present a formal accounting of everything you did and every expense you approved. If you can’t justify a charge, the court can disallow it. If the disallowed amounts are significant, you can be ordered to repay them personally.

Timely action. Estates don’t run on their own timelines. There are tax deadlines, probate requirements, property decisions, and beneficiary rights involved. Letting things slide because the process is overwhelming or because family members are in conflict doesn’t protect you. It creates liability.

Duty not to profit. Unless the will specifically authorizes it, an executor isn’t supposed to personally benefit from their position beyond the executor’s compensation that’s standard in their province or territory. Self-dealing, favoring your own interests, or taking advantage of estate assets is a serious breach.

When the Standard Isn’t Met

Earlier this year, a BC Supreme Court decision called Gowans Estate (Re), 2026 BCSC 17 landed in Canadian legal media. It’s worth paying attention to because it illustrates how the standard plays out in real life.

When the Accounting Didn’t Hold Up: Gowans Estate, BC 2026

The executor claimed reimbursement for several categories of expenses from the estate, including 14 months of cable service, medical oxygen supplies, and dog food and care costs including a live-in caregiver for the deceased’s dogs, alongside a 5% executor’s fee totalling over $49,000. When the matter came before the court, the associate judge disallowed over $39,000 in claimed expenses, finding they weren’t properly justified estate costs. The executor was then ordered to bear his own legal costs for the process of preparing and passing the accounts. A significant personal financial consequence for someone who likely believed he was doing his job.

The case doesn’t imply wrongdoing in the traditional sense. But it shows that claiming expenses you can’t properly justify, and failing to maintain the kind of documentation and judgment the standard requires, can cost you personally.

This isn’t an isolated situation. As estates become more complex, as family structures get more complicated, and as beneficiaries become more aware of their rights, executor conduct is under more scrutiny than it’s ever been.

If you’ve been named as an executor and you’re trying to understand what you’ve actually agreed to, two tools can help. Before You Say Yes™ is for people who’ve been asked to take on the role and want to think through what they’re agreeing to before they commit. The Executor’s Standard™ is a scenario-based self-assessment that follows a fictional executor named Sandra through nine realistic moments in an estate administration. At each one, you choose how you’d respond, and see what each choice puts at risk. You finish with a personalized conduct profile and a printable reference card. Neither tool replaces legal advice, but they give you a foundation, and that’s a solid place to start.

Most Named Executors Don’t Know Any of This

Here’s what makes this hard. The person who named you as their executor trusted you completely. They probably didn’t sit you down and walk you through what the role actually involves. They probably didn’t know either. You may have agreed years ago, before you had any idea what estate administration entails.

That’s not a character flaw. It’s just the reality of how these conversations happen.

The problem is that not knowing doesn’t protect you. The standard applies whether you understood it going in or not. Knowing what you’ll be judged on before something goes wrong is always better than figuring it out after.

Visit our services page to see how we can help.

Watch our video here, or watch on our YouTube Channel:

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Please send us your questions or share your comments.

Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

Will Ready Isn’t Estate Ready

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A woman stands at a kitchen table covered in papers, envelopes, and sticky notes with handwritten labels including "Call Lawyer," "Estate," "TD bank account?," "Hydro bill," "Life Insurance," and "Dad's info," looking overwhelmed as she sorts through documents after a death in the family

The Problem Isn’t the Will. It’s Everything Else.

When Priya’s mother passed away in February, she had a will. Signed, witnessed, stored with a lawyer. By every standard measure, her mother had done the right thing. But when Priya showed up at the family home the following week to begin the estate, she stood in the kitchen with a notepad and realized she had no idea where to start. She didn’t know which bank held the chequing account. She couldn’t find the insurance policy. The Rogers bill kept coming but there was no record of the login. The will said what her mother wanted done with her estate. It said nothing about how to find it.

That’s not a planning failure. That’s an organization failure. And we’re learning just how widespread the problem actually is.

What the Numbers Actually Show

The statistics on estate planning in Canada tend to focus on wills. Only about half of Canadians have one. Among millennials the number drops further. These are real gaps.

But here’s what the data also shows: even among Canadians who do have wills, most haven’t had a meaningful conversation with their family about where things are, what accounts exist, or what their wishes look like in practice. A 2025 Willful survey found that while 59 percent of Canadians say they’ve talked about end-of-life wishes, only 36 percent both know their family’s wishes and have actually shared their own. Another survey from the same year found that only a third of respondents had even discussed where they want to spend their final days.

The will gets written. The conversation doesn’t happen. The executor, often a spouse or adult child, inherits a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

What the First Week Actually Looks Like

I’m a Certified Executor Advisor, and I’ve served as an executor myself. Between those two things, I’ve seen this gap from every angle, and I can tell you that the first week of an estate has almost nothing to do with the will.

It often starts with death certificates. Depending on the estate, you may need several, because some institutions want their own original copy. Then comes the list. Which banks? Which accounts? Is there a line of credit? A safety deposit box? A pension that needs to be redirected or cancelled? Subscriptions charging a card that shouldn’t be used anymore? A digital storage account full of photos no one can access because the password died with the person?

The will doesn’t answer any of those questions. A well-organized estate does.

Most executors spend the first two to four weeks just locating things. Not distributing assets, not filing taxes, not dealing with beneficiaries. Just finding the pieces. Every hour spent hunting for a policy number or tracking down a financial institution is an hour of administrative cost to the estate, and an hour of time the executor isn’t getting back.

The family that prepared isn’t spared grief. But they’re spared the chaos that makes grief so much harder to get through.

Left In The Dark

When Colette’s husband passed away unexpectedly at 61, she found herself executor of an estate she knew almost nothing about. He had handled the finances. She knew roughly what they had, but not where it was held, who their insurance was through, or whether there were accounts she didn’t know about. She spent weeks on the phone, writing letters, and waiting. A year later, she still wasn’t entirely sure she’d found everything. That uncertainty is one of the quieter costs of an unorganized estate.

What Prepared Actually Looks Like

If you’re a homeowner, a parent, a common-law partner, a business owner, or anyone who has people in their life who’d be affected if something happened to you, the question isn’t whether you need a plan. It’s whether your plan is actually findable.

A will in a lawyer’s office is a start. But your executor also needs to know which financial institutions hold your accounts, where your insurance policies are and who to call, what your digital accounts are and how to access or close them, where your important documents are physically stored, who your key contacts are, and what your wishes are for the things a will doesn’t cover.

That’s not a legal document. That’s an organized record. And it’s what makes the difference between an executor who can move forward and one who spends months in a paper chase.

Straightforward. Until It Wasn’t.

When Tariq’s father died at 78, the family assumed the estate would be straightforward. There was a will, a house, and a modest investment account. What they didn’t have was any record of which institutions held what. Tariq spent weeks making calls, sending letters, and waiting for responses, all while trying to figure out whether there were accounts he hadn’t turned up yet. He never did feel entirely confident the estate was complete. That uncertainty doesn’t go away quickly.

Tools That Close the Gap

This is exactly why I built In Plain Sight™ as part of the NEXsteps planning toolkit. It’s a personal records organizer designed to capture all of it: your accounts, your documents, your digital life, your insurance, your key contacts. Structured so the person who steps in after you can find what they need without turning every drawer inside out. It prints cleanly so your executor can work from a hard copy, and it covers the categories that come up again and again in real estate administration.

For families who want to tackle the full picture, The Prepared Estate™ bundles In Plain Sight with Estate Architect™, a companion tool that walks you through the decisions that shape a complete estate plan before you sit down with a lawyer or an advisor.

Neither tool replaces a will. Neither replaces legal advice. But both address the gap that’s costing Canadian families weeks of confusion and real administrative time, every single day.

Explore In Plain Sight™, The Prepared Estate™, and the full NEXsteps planning toolkit.

Priya’s mother had a will. That was something. But it would have been so much easier, and so much more honouring of everything she built, if she’d left a map alongside it.

Don’t leave a scavenger hunt.

Visit our services page to see how we can help.

Watch our video here, or watch on our YouTube Channel:

Prefer a podcast? Listen here!

Please send us your questions or share your comments.

Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

 

I’ll Be Dead Anyway

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An older man looking pensively outside with an image of his children, indicating choices of his estate gifts

He Told Me Three Things. Every One of Them Was Wrong.

Marcel isn’t an unreasonable man. He has a will. He’s thought about what happens when he dies, at least enough to put something on paper. He loves his five kids. He’s been married a long time, even if the marriage hasn’t been easy.

So when I mentioned that his will leaves everything to his spouse with no direction about personal property and suggested a family conversation might be worth having, I wasn’t prepared for how quickly he closed the door.

He said three things. I’ve heard all three before, more times than I can count.

“I’ll be dead. It won’t be my problem.”

“I know my kids. They won’t fight over anything.”

“After I’m gone, if she wants to deal with it, that’s up to her.”

Each one sounds reasonable. Each one is actually a decision, dressed up as indifference. And together, they’re setting up exactly the kind of situation Marcel believes he’s avoiding.

“I’ll be dead. It won’t be my problem.”

This one is technically true and practically useless.

Marcel won’t be there. He won’t witness the disagreement over who gets the dining room table, or the tools in the garage, or the watch he wore every day for thirty years. He won’t be there when two of his children feel like they deserved more clarity, or when one of them walks away from a family gathering feeling like something was taken from them.

But here’s what he will have done. He’ll have made a choice. Not choosing is still choosing. Leaving no direction about personal property, no expressed wishes, no conversation on record, is a decision that gets made by default. It just gets made by other people, under pressure, while they’re grieving.

The question isn’t whether it will be Marcel’s problem. It won’t be. The question is whose problem it becomes, and whether he’s comfortable with that.

Most people, when they think that through, aren’t as comfortable as they thought.

“I know my kids. They won’t fight over anything.”

Marcel probably does know his kids. But there’s a version of his kids he’s never met.

He hasn’t met them at sixty, navigating their own financial pressures, their own marriages, their own histories with each other that have accumulated over decades. He hasn’t met them grieving, operating without the one person who could clarify what he meant or what he wanted. He hasn’t met them negotiating with a spouse who is now the sole legal owner of everything, trying to figure out how to advocate for themselves without causing a rift.

Research backs this up in a way that surprises most people. Estate attorneys report that more than half of the disputes they see involve items that represent less than ten percent of the estate’s total value. Not the money. The stuff. The lamp. The jewellery. The photograph albums. The things that have no market value and enormous emotional weight.

Those disputes aren’t about greed. They’re about what the object means, and about old dynamics that were manageable when the parent was alive and become unmanageable when they’re not.

Marcel’s kids might be fine. Plenty of families navigate this well. But “I know my kids” isn’t a plan. It’s a hope. And hope isn’t the same thing as having the conversation.

When Sylvie’s father passed away

Sylvie and her three brothers had always gotten along. Their father was confident they’d divide things fairly, and he said so often. What he never said was who should get his coin collection, or the fishing gear, or the hand-built bookshelf that had been in his study for forty years. Within six weeks of his death, Sylvie had stopped speaking to her oldest brother. Not over money. Over the bookshelf. It was not about the bookshelf.

“If she wants to deal with it, that’s up to her.”

This one sounds like generosity. It isn’t.

When Marcel’s will passes everything to his spouse, she becomes the legal owner of everything in that estate. Every piece of furniture. Every tool. Every item with sentimental value to one or more of his five children. What she does with those things is entirely up to her. She has no legal obligation to honour anything Marcel said out loud, any promises made at the kitchen table, any understanding his children may have about what was meant for them.

She may handle it beautifully. She may distribute things exactly as Marcel would have wanted. But Marcel has given her that task with no roadmap, no expressed wishes on record, and a family that includes members who may find it hard to advocate for themselves without feeling like they’re creating conflict.

That’s not a small thing. That’s a significant amount of pressure placed on one person, at one of the hardest moments of her life, with five different sets of expectations she may or may not know about.

“She can deal with it” assumes she knows what to do. It assumes she knows what Marcel would have wanted. It assumes the children will trust her judgment and accept the outcome. Those are a lot of assumptions for a plan that has nothing written down.

What Marcel Could Do Instead

None of this requires a lawyer, though updating a will to include specific bequests of personal property is worth discussing with one. What it requires is a willingness to have the conversation while he still can.

That conversation doesn’t have to be formal or a big deal. It can start with something as simple as walking through the house and making note of what matters and who it matters to. It can include a written record of his wishes, even an informal one, so that his spouse and his children have something to refer to. It can include a direct conversation with his kids about what he wants for them and what he’s hoping they’ll do for each other.

The goal isn’t to predict every conflict. It’s to remove as many ambiguities as possible, so the people he loves aren’t left filling in the blanks under the worst possible circumstances.

If you’re not sure where to start, The Prepared Estate™ brings together two tools designed for exactly this stage of planning. Estate Architect™ walks you through the decisions that shape your estate plan, and In Plain Sight™ helps you organize and document the personal records, accounts, and assets your family will need to find. Together, they give your executor, your spouse, and your children something to work with. You can find it at https://agapimarketing.com/planning-toolkit/

Marcel isn’t a bad planner. He’s a very common one. He’s done enough to feel like he’s handled it, without quite doing enough to actually handle it. That gap is where most estate problems live.

The good news is that gap is entirely closeable. But only while he’s still here to close it.

Visit our services page to see how we can help.

Watch our video here, or watch on our YouTube Channel:

Prefer a podcast? Listen here!

Please send us your questions or share your comments.

Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

The Divorce Problem in Your Estate Plan

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A woman reviews estate planning documents at a desk while two people in conflict are visible in the background, representing the intersection of inheritance and divorce.

What Happens to an Inheritance If Your Child Is Divorcing?

Most estate plans are written with a simple assumption: assets move from parent to child, and from there, life takes its course.

But life doesn’t stay simple. One of the most overlooked complications in estate administration is what happens when a beneficiary child is in the middle of a separation or divorce when an inheritance arrives.

It raises difficult but practical questions. Does the inheritance stay protected? Can an ex-spouse make a claim? And what should an executor do when the timing of distribution collides with a family breakdown?

These aren’t rare scenarios anymore. They’re becoming part of routine estate administration conversations.

Can a Child’s Ex-Spouse Claim an Inheritance?

In general terms, an inheritance received by one spouse is usually considered separate property, meaning it’s not automatically subject to division on separation or divorce.

But that protection depends heavily on what happens after the inheritance is received.

The legal principle is clear. The practical reality is not.

An inheritance can lose its protected status if it becomes mixed with family or marital property, and this often happens without any intention to blur ownership lines. A beneficiary deposits inherited funds into a joint account for convenience. Inheritance money pays down a shared mortgage or covers shared expenses during separation. Funds get invested into jointly owned assets with no written record separating them from marital property.

Once inheritance funds are mixed with shared assets, tracing them becomes difficult. In some cases, the inherited value can be considered part of the overall property division during separation. Even when the original inheritance is excluded, growth or assets purchased with those funds may still become part of the financial dispute.

The key issue isn’t whether an inheritance is theoretically protected. It’s whether it remains clearly identifiable in practice.

Why Timing Matters in Estate Administration

When a parent passes away, the timing of distribution can become critical if a child is already separated or in divorce proceedings.

Executors often assume their role is purely administrative: follow the will, distribute the assets, and close the file. But when a beneficiary is in the middle of family law proceedings, the timing of that distribution can influence how the inheritance is treated in negotiations between spouses.

If funds are distributed directly to a beneficiary before their separation is finalized, those funds may enter the financial picture being divided. On the other hand, delaying distribution without proper legal justification can create its own tension and disputes within the estate.

Executors aren’t expected to resolve family law matters. But they do need to recognize when a standard distribution may carry unintended consequences.

Why Executors Need to Be Cautious

Executors are often placed in a difficult position when a beneficiary is separating or divorcing. They may receive requests from the beneficiary to distribute funds quickly, informal notices from family law counsel, pressure from other family members to proceed without delay, and real uncertainty about whether funds should be held temporarily.

The challenge is that executors aren’t decision-makers in the family law process. But their actions can still have consequences outside the estate file. A standard payout made without awareness of a beneficiary’s legal situation can unintentionally expose assets to division in divorce proceedings.

In some cases, executors choose to hold funds in trust or seek legal direction before distributing. This isn’t about overstepping authority. It’s about avoiding unnecessary exposure of estate assets to external disputes.

When a Routine Distribution Becomes Complicated

When Ted passed away, he left an equal inheritance to his two adult children. His son Marcus was in the early stages of separation, but no one had informed the executor of any formal legal proceedings. The executor proceeded with a direct payout into Marcus’s personal account. Within weeks, those funds appeared in financial disclosure documents during the separation process. While the inheritance itself wasn’t automatically divisible, it had entered the broader financial picture because it hadn’t been kept separate or documented clearly. What began as a routine distribution became part of a contested financial disclosure process.

Planning for Real-Life Conditions, Not Ideal Ones

If you’re thinking about how your estate plan would hold up in situations like these, the key question isn’t just who inherits. It’s how that inheritance is protected once it leaves your estate.

The decisions you make before you sit down with a lawyer shape what your plan can actually do. If you want to think through those decisions more carefully, The Will Blueprint™ is a good place to start. It’s designed to help you work through the key choices before your legal appointment, so your will reflects what you actually intend, including how distributions are structured when family circumstances are anything but simple.

You can find it, along with the full suite of estate planning and executor resources, here: agapimarketing.com/planning-toolkit/

Why This Topic Is Often Missed in Estate Planning

Estate planning discussions tend to focus on wills, taxes, and asset distribution. Far less attention is given to what happens after an inheritance lands in the hands of a beneficiary who’s going through a relationship breakdown.

Yet this is where many unintended outcomes occur. The risk usually isn’t poor drafting. It’s that estate plans assume stability at the exact moment when stability may not exist.

A child may be separating at the time of death, finalizing a divorce shortly after distribution, or navigating new financial arrangements while grief and legal processes overlap. In these situations, even well-structured estate plans can produce outcomes that differ from what the parent expected.

What Parents Can Do Differently

No estate plan can control every future life event, but there are ways to reduce exposure and confusion.

It’s worth considering whether outright lump-sum distributions make sense in all circumstances, or whether trusts or staged distributions would provide more stability when a beneficiary’s situation is uncertain. Clarity matters too: the more identifiable inherited assets are after transfer, the easier they are to protect. Updating documents when family circumstances change closes the gap between what’s written and what’s real. And communicating your intentions clearly can reduce the assumptions that tend to lead to conflict.

The goal isn’t to control beneficiaries. It’s to reduce the chance that an inheritance becomes part of a legal process it was never intended to enter.

Final Thought

Inheritance doesn’t stop being vulnerable once it’s distributed. It simply moves into a different environment where relationships, timing, and financial behaviour determine what happens next. When a child is going through separation or divorce, that environment becomes more complex.

For parents and executors, the real question isn’t only what the estate plan says. It’s whether it still works when life is already in motion.

That’s where thoughtful planning makes the difference between intention and outcome.

Visit our services page to see how we can help.

Watch our video here, or watch on our YouTube Channel:

Prefer a podcast? Listen here!

Please send us your questions or share your comments.

Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

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