How to Write a Valid Will in British Columbia

A 17-year-old in Surrey who has just finished high school and is taking a year off to work signs her first will at the credit union with two co-workers as witnesses. In BC, she is one year past the WESA minimum age and her will is fully valid the moment the witnesses sign.^[1] The BC rules for wills are, in several specific places, more modern and more flexible than the rest of Canada. They are also stricter in one important way — BC does not let a handwritten will stand on its own without witnesses, the way Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba do.

This guide covers the BC-specific rules under the Wills, Estates and Succession Act — execution formalities, the 16-year minimum age, the section 58 curative power, the witness rules, and what a serviceable BC will needs to look like.

The legal floor: age and capacity in BC #

Section 36 of WESA permits a person aged 16 or older with testamentary capacity to make a will.^[1] The age was lowered from 19 to 16 when WESA came into force on March 31, 2014, and it remains the lowest minimum age for a will-maker in any Canadian province.

Capacity is the same test BC courts have applied for generations — Banks v Goodfellow. The will-maker has to have understood, at the moment of signing, that they were making a will, the general nature of their property, the people who might reasonably expect to inherit, and the effect of the gifts they were making. Where capacity is contested, contemporaneous medical assessments and the drafting lawyer's notes are decisive.

The formal requirements (WESA section 37) #

A BC will is formally valid if three things are true:^[1]

1. The will is in writing.
2. The will-maker signs the will (or acknowledges their signature) in the presence of two witnesses, both present at the same time.
3. Both witnesses sign the will in the will-maker's presence.

Two practical points everyone gets wrong on at least one occasion:

• "In the presence of" includes audio-visual presence. Since the 2020-2021 WESA amendments, the will-maker and witnesses can be in each other's electronic presence by two-way live video. Electronic signatures are permitted in defined circumstances under section 35.1. This made BC one of the early Canadian provinces to allow fully remote will execution. Most BC wills are still signed in person on paper — the remote option is an alternative.
• Both witnesses must be present at the same time. A will-maker who signs in front of witness A on Monday and witness B on Wednesday produces a will that is not formally compliant. The section 58 curative power may rescue it, but the executor should not be in court to rescue a will that should have been signed correctly in the first place.

Witness rules — who can and cannot sign #

Witnesses must be at least 19 (the age of majority in BC), mentally capable, and not the will-maker themselves.

WESA section 43 voids a gift in favour of a person who acted as a witness, or in favour of a witness's spouse, while leaving the rest of the will valid.^[1] The court can order the gift be paid out anyway if it is satisfied the witness did not exercise improper influence, but the safer rule is the obvious one — never use a beneficiary or beneficiary's spouse as a witness.

Independent adult witnesses with no interest in the estate (neighbours, coworkers, friends, the BC notary or lawyer's staff) are the standard choice.

Holograph wills — why BC is different #

Most common-law Canadian provinces recognize holograph wills (wills entirely in the testator's own handwriting and signature, no witnesses). BC does not. Section 37 of WESA requires witnesses for formal validity, full stop.

If a handwritten document is found among the deceased's papers — a signed-but-unwitnessed note, a draft, a deathbed instruction — the executor cannot probate it as a will the way they could in Ontario. The path is a section 58 curative application.

Section 58 — curing a non-compliant document #

Section 58 is BC's substantial-compliance escape valve, and the reason BC's lack of a holograph option is not as harsh in practice as it sounds.

The BC Supreme Court may, on application, make an order that a document not meeting the formal requirements is fully effective as a will (or as an alteration, revocation, or revival), if the court is satisfied the document represents:^[1]

• The testamentary intentions of the deceased
• The intention of the deceased to revoke, alter, or revive a will
• The intention of the deceased with respect to any other matter that may be the subject of a testamentary disposition

The leading BC framework asks two things: is the document authentic, and does it contain the full, final, and fixed testamentary intention of the will-maker? Drafts that the will-maker had not yet decided to execute will not pass; an unwitnessed handwritten and signed will that the will-maker clearly meant as their final document often does.

The cost is real. A section 58 application typically runs several thousand dollars in legal fees, plus court time, and involves notice to interested parties. It is a backstop, not a strategy.

What a BC will needs in substance #

The execution formalities are half the work. The contents matter at least as much:

• An executor and at least one alternate. The executor handles probate, gathers assets, pays debts, files the deceased's final T1 tax return, and distributes the residue per the will.
• A guardian for minor children if applicable, and a custodian for any inheritance held for them. BC guardianship appointments named in a will are subject to court oversight under the Family Law Act but carry significant weight.
• A residuary clause that catches anything not specifically named.
• Specific bequests for items that matter — the cabin, the family ring, the boat.
• A backup if a beneficiary dies before the will-maker — typically per stirpes (the predeceased beneficiary's share passes to their descendants).
• Funeral and final-disposition wishes at a high level.

Things to leave OUT of the will: PINs, passwords, exact account numbers, sensitive operational details. The will becomes part of the probate record. Operational details belong in a separate document for the executor, kept off the probate file.

Wills variation — what makes BC unusual #

The other place where BC stands apart from the rest of Canada is on the back end. Under section 60 of WESA, a spouse (including a common-law spouse in a marriage-like relationship for at least two years) or biological or legally adopted child of the deceased can apply to the BC Supreme Court to vary the will if it does not make "adequate, just, and equitable" provision for them.^[2]

What makes BC different: even adult, independent, employed children can apply. In every other common-law province, adult independent children generally have no standing to vary a will purely on fairness grounds. BC remains the only province where testamentary freedom is meaningfully tempered for adult children regardless of their financial situation.

The practical consequence for BC will drafting: a will that disinherits an adult child or leaves them substantially less than their siblings carries real wills-variation risk in BC. The current convention is to write a contemporaneous memorandum to file explaining the reasoning — the will-maker's relationship history with the child, the support already provided during life, the moral reasoning behind the unequal distribution. BC courts will consider that reasoning in deciding whether the will made adequate, just, and equitable provision. The memorandum does not eliminate variation risk, but it gives the executor and the lawyer something concrete to defend.

The deadline to commence a wills variation claim is generally 180 days from the grant of probate.

Marriage, divorce, and updating the will #

Marriage no longer revokes a BC will. WESA repealed the old Wills Act and did not carry forward its rule that marriage automatically revoked a prior will, and the change applies to wills made before WESA came into force as well as after. A will-maker who married before the document was prepared, or who marries afterward, generally has the same will in effect — though every life event is a reason to review the document.

Separation and divorce work differently. WESA section 56 revokes gifts in favour of a former spouse and revokes the former spouse's appointment as executor or trustee once the spouses cease to be spouses (generally on divorce, or after living separate and apart with the intention to remain so), leaving the rest of the will valid. The former spouse is treated as having died before the will-maker.^[1]

The standard review cycle for a BC will is every three to five years and after major life events: marriage, divorce, birth or adoption of a child, death of a beneficiary, purchase or sale of major property, or significant changes in your family or financial situation.

Storage #

BC maintains a Wills Notice registry through Vital Statistics where will-makers can voluntarily file a notice of where their will is stored. The notice does not include the will itself — only its location. After death, the executor or family member can search the registry to find out whether a notice was filed and where to look.

Filing a Wills Notice is one of the genuinely useful, low-cost steps unique to BC. The fee is small and the document becomes part of the probate search standard practice. Doing it eliminates the most common BC will problem — original missing because no one knew it was at the credit union safety deposit box.

What we focus on at It's Simple Will #

The Will Creator at app.itssimplewill.ca produces a BC-compliant will. The execution instructions walk the WESA section 37 sequence — sign in front of two non-beneficiary adult witnesses, both present at the same time, both witnesses signing in your presence. The will is paired with an affidavit of execution template.

BC's section 58 curative power is real, but it is also expensive and uncertain. A will that gets the formalities right the first time costs nothing extra and stays out of court.

Related reading: how to write a will in Canada, dying without a will in Canada, and what is probate in Canada.