Financial Planning -> Wills and Estates -> Registering a Will
Does a Will Need to be Registered?
In BC a will can be registered, but this is not mandatory.
To register a will, a "Wills Notice" form is filed with the BC Vital Statistics Agency. This form contains information regarding the date the will was made, and the location of the will. A copy of the will is not sent with the form.
When a person dies, the executor does a "Wills Search". The results of the will search will give them the location and the date of the most recent will that was registered. The information on how to do a wills search can be found at the bottom of the web page regarding the wills notice, on the BC Vital Statistics Agency web site.
The fees for filing a wills notice and for doing a wills search in BC are listed on the BC Wills Registry page.
For information regarding what happens in each province, see What to do when someone dies, which has links to wills and estate information on provincial/territorial websites.
Revised: October 26, 2023