When you name a person in your last will to be the Executor of your Estate, that person sometimes needs to also apply to the Court to be appointed formally as the legal representative of your Estate in order to deal with certain property that you own, potentially like a house or a bank account that solely in your name.
The process of applying to Court to be appointed as
the representative of your Estate is what we call Probate.
This can
depend on the Will itself. Some factors to consider are:
If the Court is satisfied with the answers to all of these questions, and an executor has already been appointed outside Ontario, it may grant that executor the right to administer the deceased’s property in Ontario, too.
You can definitely name somebody in your last will to have
custody and guardianship of your minor children in the event both of the
parents pass away.
Now, the appointment you make in you last will is temporary.
That person will eventually need to apply to the court to be appointed as a
permanent guardian. But, when they make that application, the court will look
very closely on who you named in your last will, and factor that in the
decision about who should be the permanent guardian of your children.
