Recently a relative died and my siblings and I have been named in the will. My sister called the lawyer to see If she could get a copy of the will. He said after Probate. We hear the term all of the time, but really don't know what it means.

The act of Probating the will essentially means sumbitting the will to Probate Court, a division of provincial/state court that handles estate matters. Accompanying the will would be an affidavit of sorts that the executor must give evidence on, like they are the person named as executor, the person named in the will is the one and the same person named on the death certificate and that to their knowledge no other will or testamentary document exists that would cancel out this will. The Courts will check to ensure that no other person has applied to deal with this persons estate and read the evidence submitted by the proposed executor. If it is satisfactory they will then issue a Grant of Probate which gives the executor the legal right and capacity to deal with all of the estate matters.

If you are named in the will you should receive a copy of same shortly after it is probabated. The reason lawyers don't bother sending out the will before hand is that the application for probate may not be accepted for one reason or another and it would therefore be preemptive to send it out beforehand and a waste of copying charges and postage. Where I live lawyers are required to provide a copy of the will and a tariiff form setting out the fees they are allowed to charge within 30 days of probate being issued.

Court documents (probate or otherwise) are public record so same can be obtained, for a copying fee, at the courthouse where same was filed. The probate clerk will have the file, but you can obtain it from the resgistry clerk.

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