All About Estates
By Alicia Mossington
February 27th, 2025
Historically in Ontario, a Last Will and Testament was required to meet strict formal validity requirements to be considered valid.
The requirements set out in the Succession Law Reform Act required a Will to be in writing and signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses who also signed the document.
There was a limited exemption for holograph Wills – documents wholly in the testators own handwriting that were signed and expressed a final testamentary intention.
In 2022 the formal validity requirements for Last Wills and Testaments in Ontario were changed to allow court applications to validate a document “purporting” to be a final Will. Since 2022 several cases have offered guidance around the required analysis of testamentary documents.
Considering whether different types of documents could be considered Wills and the study of both testamentary capacity and intention requires an after-the-fact analysis that may be hampered by a lack of information and passage of time.
