Executor of Will Checklist for Canada — The 50-Item Job by Phase

A Toronto man named his older brother as executor without telling him in advance. Six weeks after the funeral, the brother — a retired engineer with no estates background — opened a courier package containing a death certificate, a will, two unfamiliar bank statements, a sticky note in his late brother's handwriting that said "DON'T forget the cottage," and a stack of unopened mail. He had no idea where to start. He spent the first month doing nothing useful because no one had given him a list.

This is the list. The job runs through six predictable phases over roughly twelve to eighteen months, with a few high-risk decision points that catch first-time executors. The structure below is province-agnostic — the substantive rules and provincial forms differ — but the sequence of work is broadly the same across English-Canada.

Phase 1 — The first 48 hours #

The work that has to happen immediately, even before formally accepting the role:

1. Confirm whether the deceased had pre-arranged funeral instructions and locate them.
2. Locate the original will (home, safety-deposit box, lawyer's office, provincial wills notice registry where one exists).
3. Notify immediate family and confirm who is named as executor and who as guardians (if minor children).
4. Order at least 10 original death certificates from the funeral home or vital statistics office. Institutions generally insist on originals, not photocopies.
5. Secure the deceased's home: locks changed if necessary, mail redirected, perishable food disposed of, valuables inventoried.
6. Notify the deceased's employer (if applicable), accountant, lawyer, and financial advisor.
7. Take photographs of high-value contents for insurance and inventory purposes.

The first 48 hours are about preventing irretrievable losses — a property left unsecured, a will that gets misplaced, a perishable estate asset that decays. Substantive administration starts later.

Phase 2 — The first 30 days #

Once immediate logistics are handled, the executor moves into accepting the role and beginning the documentation:

8. Confirm acceptance of the executor role (or renounce in writing if declining).
9. Notify the deceased's bank — most banks have a dedicated bereavement-services line. Freeze accounts held solely in the deceased's name; the bank generally will not release funds beyond burial costs until the grant issues.
10. Cancel credit cards, club memberships, subscriptions, and recurring charges in the deceased's name.
11. Notify the post office of the death and redirect mail to the executor's address.
12. Cancel the deceased's driver's licence and provincial health card.
13. Notify Service Canada (for CPP and OAS) and apply for the CPP death benefit.
14. Notify private pensions, defined-benefit plans, and group benefit providers.
15. Cancel or transfer property and vehicle insurance to reflect the executor as policy contact.
16. Begin an asset inventory: financial accounts, real estate, vehicles, personal property of meaningful value.
17. Begin a liability inventory: outstanding bills, credit-card balances, mortgages, lines of credit, tax owing.
18. Begin a beneficiary inventory: who is named on what (will, RRSPs, TFSAs, life insurance, pensions).

The 30-day mark is roughly when the executor should have a working picture of what's in the estate, what's owed against it, and who receives what.

Phase 3 — Applying for probate #

The probate application is the gating step for most third-party institutions. Some estates skip probate entirely (very small estates, or estates where every asset passes by survivorship or beneficiary designation); most do not.

19. Determine whether probate is required at all. If every meaningful asset passes outside the will, the executor may not need a grant.
20. Obtain date-of-death valuations: bank balances, investment statements, real-property appraisals, vehicle Black-Book values.
21. Calculate the total value of property passing under the will (gross value in some provinces, net value in others).
22. Prepare the probate application package — provincial forms, executor affidavit, asset disclosure, original will, original death certificate, notices to beneficiaries.
23. In BC, deliver the Notice of Proposed Application (Form P1) and wait 21 days before filing.
24. File the application with the appropriate provincial registry and pay the probate fee. (See our Canadian probate fee calculator for the provincial schedule.)
25. Order multiple certified copies of the grant once issued — institutions will retain originals.

Ontario adds one further procedural step that catches executors off-guard: the Estate Information Return must be filed with the Ministry of Finance within 180 days of receiving the certificate.^[5]

Phase 4 — Collecting assets #

With the grant in hand, the executor moves through the institution-by-institution work of consolidating estate assets into an estate account:

26. Open an estate bank account in the name of "Estate of [Deceased]" — banks will require the grant.
27. Close or transfer the deceased's bank accounts; move balances to the estate account.
28. Notify investment firms; transfer non-registered investments to the estate account or hold for in-kind distribution.
29. Process RRSPs, RRIFs, and TFSAs — generally these flow to named beneficiaries outside the estate, but where the beneficiary is the estate or unnamed, they route through the executor.
30. File insurance claims with life insurers — typically the proceeds flow directly to named beneficiaries.
31. Transfer real-estate title — joint property passes by survivorship; sole-name property requires the grant and a Transmission Application at the land registry.
32. Sell or transfer vehicles, registering the change with the provincial transport authority.
33. Sell or distribute personal property per the will's specific bequests; document fair market values for residual items.
34. Collect debts owed to the deceased (outstanding wages, rent receivables, loans to others).

Phase 5 — Taxes and creditors #

This is where executor personal liability concentrates. Two CRA filings drive the work, plus the notice-to-creditors process.

35. File the deceased's final T1 income tax return for the year of death. The general filing deadline is April 30 of the year following death (or June 15 if the deceased or spouse was self-employed). If the deceased died between November 1 and December 31, the deadline extends to six months after the date of death.
36. Pay any balance owing on the final T1 from estate funds.
37. File T3 Trust Income Tax and Information Return for the estate's post-death income, where required.
38. Apply for the CRA clearance certificate (Form TX19) once the final T1 is assessed and any required T3 returns are filed. The clearance certificate is the executor's protection against personal liability for unpaid tax of the deceased or the estate.^[1]
39. Publish notice to creditors in a newspaper of general circulation in the province where the deceased lived (provincial requirements vary). Wait out the notice period (typically 30 to 60 days) before final distribution.
40. Pay validated claims of creditors from estate funds, in the priority order set by provincial estates legislation.

Distributing the residue of the estate before the clearance certificate is received is the single most common way Canadian executors take on personal financial liability that they did not need to.^[3] Section 159 of the Income Tax Act exposes the executor personally to any unpaid tax of the deceased or the estate, up to the value of distributed assets. The clearance certificate is the formal CRA confirmation that no further amount is owed.

Phase 6 — Distribution and close-out #

Once taxes are cleared and creditors paid:

41. Prepare a final accounting for beneficiaries — receipts, disbursements, expenses paid, executor compensation proposed.
42. Obtain releases from each adult beneficiary acknowledging the accounting and consenting to distribution.
43. If any beneficiary objects, formally pass accounts before the provincial court before distributing.
44. Distribute specific bequests per the will (the silver pocket watch to the named grandchild, the cabin to the named brother).
45. Distribute the residue to residual beneficiaries in the proportions set by the will.
46. Pay executor compensation — typically taken at this point, calculated under provincial guidelines or court-approved.
47. Close the estate bank account.
48. Retain copies of all records for at least six years (CRA reassessment window). Some practitioners recommend longer.
49. Provide each beneficiary with a final accounting and confirmation of distribution.
50. Confirm no estate obligations remain outstanding — no unfiled returns, unpaid accounts, or open reminders — keep the clearance certificate with the retained records, and treat the administration as formally closed.

The high-risk decision points #

A few items on the list above are routine; a few carry real risk. The high-risk decision points worth flagging:

Distributing before the clearance certificate. Section 159 personal liability is the single biggest risk an executor takes on. Patience here is essentially free; impatience can be expensive.^[3]

Setting executor compensation without beneficiary consent. Provincial guidelines give a range, but the actual figure should be agreed with beneficiaries (or court-approved) before being paid. Self-set executor compensation is a common cause of passing-of-accounts disputes.

Skipping the notice to creditors. A debt that emerges after distribution can fall on the executor personally if proper notice was not given. The newspaper-notice step is cheap protection.

Distributing real estate too quickly. Real estate that turns out to be subject to a deferred capital-gain (US-situs property in particular) can carry tax surprises. Tax advice before disposition is the right call where there is any cross-border element or appreciated investment property.

Mixing estate funds with personal funds. Even temporarily depositing an estate cheque into the executor's own account creates a co-mingling issue that complicates any later passing-of-accounts. The estate bank account exists for exactly this reason.

What we focus on at It's Simple Will #

Our will questionnaire builds a will that is straightforward for an executor to administer — clean residual clauses, identifiable beneficiaries, no internal contradictions, properly named substitute executors. Half the difficulty in executor work comes from the will itself; a clearly drafted will is the single most valuable thing the testator can leave behind.

The companion product — our Life Discovery Kit — is the document that tells the executor where everything is: which bank, which broker, which insurance policy, where the deeds are, which password vault holds the digital accounts. The structural will does not capture that information; the discovery document does. Our pillar on what an executor actually does walks the same job from the philosophical angle (what kind of work this is, what compensation is realistic, how much time it consumes).