What happens if you die without a will in Ontario
If you die without a will in Ontario, the Succession Law Reform Act decides who inherits, not you. A married spouse receives the first $350,000 of the estate, called the preferential share, and anything above that is divided between the spouse and the children. A common-law partner receives nothing automatically, however long you were together.
| Preferential share | $350,000 | What a married spouse takes first, for deaths on or after 1 March 2021. It was $200,000 before that date. |
|---|---|---|
| One child | Half the remainder | After the preferential share, the spouse takes half of what is left and the child takes the other half. |
| Two or more children | One third | The spouse takes a third of the remainder and the children share the other two thirds equally. |
| Common-law partner | Nothing | No automatic entitlement on an Ontario intestacy, regardless of how many years you lived together. |
The province writes the will you did not
Dying without a will is called dying intestate. It does not mean the estate goes to the government, which is the version most people have heard. It means Ontario applies a fixed formula, in an order set out in the Succession Law Reform Act, and that formula does not know anything about your family.
It does not know that one child helped you for ten years and another has not called. It does not know you promised the house to somebody. It does not know that the person you have lived with since 2009 is the person you would have left everything to. It applies the same arithmetic to everyone.
What a married spouse actually receives
A married spouse takes the preferential share first: the first $350,000 of the estate, for deaths on or after 1 March 2021. For deaths before that date the figure is $200,000, which still matters when an estate is being settled years later.
What happens next depends on children. With no children, the spouse takes everything. With one child, the spouse takes half of whatever is left above $350,000 and the child takes the other half. With two or more children, the spouse takes a third of the remainder and the children share the rest equally.
On a Mississauga estate where most of the value is a paid-down house, that arithmetic often means the surviving spouse does not simply inherit the home. They inherit a share of it, alongside children who inherit the other share, and the house has to be dealt with by people who are grieving.
Common-law partners are the ones this catches
Ontario does not treat a common-law partner as a spouse for inheritance. There is no qualifying period that fixes it. Ten years, twenty years, a shared mortgage and children together do not create an automatic entitlement on an intestacy.
This surprises people because other provinces are different. British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan all recognise a qualifying common-law or adult interdependent partner. Someone who moved from Calgary and assumes the same rule applies in Peel is working from the wrong law.
A partner in that position can bring a claim for support against the estate, but that is a court process, it costs money and time, and it happens while they are also trying to bury somebody. A will avoids the entire question.
What it costs the people left behind
Without a will there is no named executor, so someone has to apply to the court to be appointed before they can do anything at all: not sell the house, not close the accounts, not access the money that pays for the funeral.
That application takes time, and until it is granted the estate is frozen. Families end up covering costs themselves and waiting to be repaid. It is the most avoidable part of the whole thing, and it is avoided by a document and an afternoon.
What people ask next
Does the government take everything if there is no will in Ontario?
No. That only happens if there is no spouse and no traceable relatives at all, which is rare. What actually happens is that Ontario's formula decides who inherits, in a fixed order, and your own wishes play no part in it.
Is a handwritten will valid in Ontario?
A will written entirely in your own handwriting and signed by you, called a holograph will, can be valid in Ontario without witnesses. Whether it does what you intended is a separate question, and it is the one that ends up in court. A lawyer draws one up properly.
Do my RRSPs and life insurance follow the will?
Usually not. Anything with a named beneficiary, so registered accounts and insurance policies, passes directly to that person outside the estate and outside the will. That is why a beneficiary review is often the fastest fix available: it takes minutes and it overrides a great deal.
We are common law. Does a will fix it?
Yes, and it is the whole point. Ontario gives a common-law partner no automatic share on an intestacy, so a will is the only thing that makes your intentions binding. It is the single most important document for an unmarried couple in this province.
Where these figures come from
Checked 28 August 2026
- Succession Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.26, s. 45 (the preferential share).
- O. Reg. 121/21 amending O. Reg. 54/95: $350,000 for deaths on or after 1 March 2021, $200,000 before.
Ehsan Khandaker is a licensed financial and estate planner, CLU and CHS. He is not a lawyer and does not draft documents. This page is general information about Ontario rules, not guidance about your own situation, and a will is drawn up by a lawyer.
Most people who read this already suspected the answer. If you want to know what it would actually mean for your household, that is a twenty-minute conversation and it costs nothing.