Important updates have been published on the Ontario Court Forms website. Specifically, these updates impact the new probate forms that were published in January 2022, and will go into effect on July 1, 2022.
The changes seem to respond to early feedback the Courts have received since the new forms went into effect, bringing additional clarity to some areas of the forms. Namely, on the Application Form (74):
- Property in Ontario is now clearly defined as real and/or personal property
- Deceased’s occupation is no longer required
- Unused sections in the Part 3 (Deceased’s spousal relationships) should be removed, and additional information is required in some cases
- Under Part 6, Entitlement to Apply, the declarations must be reproduced for each applicant
- In Part 7, Each beneficiary’s relationship to the deceased is now required
- A new section (Part 9) has been added for the Estate Administration Tax, and whether the applicant is seeking an order to defer the payment
- Another new section (Part 10) has also been added for the Bond, in which the applicants must specify whether a bond is required, and if so, whether they are relying on an exemption
To see all changes to Form 74A, please see the following comparison document.
The Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee (Form 74C) has also been slightly modified, and now includes specific wording that must be included depending on the situation (eg. with a will, executed remotely, following a court order, if a person has renounced or predeceased, etc.). This further clarifies another point of potential discrepancy that we have seen so far since January.
Other forms, such as Form 74I, 74J, and the Small Estate forms, have also been updated in line with these changes.
Over the coming weeks, we will continue to monitor any additional changes to these forms. We plan to implement these in the second week of June so that they are fully live in time for any application that needs to be submitted as of their effective date on July 1, 2022.
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