If you die without a will in Alberta, you die “intestate” and the Wills and Succession Act decides who inherits, not you. A surviving spouse or partner generally inherits the estate when all children are shared; if there are children from another relationship, the estate is divided between them by formula. Without a will, you also can’t choose your executor or name a guardian for your children. Making a will puts all of those decisions back in your hands.
Imagine it’s a Tuesday a few months from now. Your sister is sitting at your kitchen table, surrounded by paperwork, trying to piece together what you would have wanted. She doesn’t know your passwords. She doesn’t know which account pays the mortgage. And she has no idea whether you’d have wanted your kids’ godparents to raise them, because it was never written down. That scene plays out in Calgary more often than you’d think, and it almost always comes down to one missing document: a will.
Here’s the part most people don’t realize. If you die without a valid will in Alberta, what’s called dying “intestate”, you don’t decide who gets what. A government formula does, set out in the Wills and Succession Act, and it doesn’t care about your intentions, your relationships, or your family’s particular needs. It just follows the rules.
So who actually inherits?
It comes down to who survives you. In plain terms:
- A spouse or partner and no kids? Your estate generally goes to your partner.
- A partner and kids who are also your partner’s kids? Generally to your partner.
- A partner and kids from a previous relationship? The estate gets split between them by formula, meaning your current partner might receive only a portion of what you owned.
- No partner at all? It flows to your children, and if you have none, to other relatives in a fixed legal order.
That’s the simplified version, and the exact result depends on your family. But the message underneath it is blunt: intestacy can divide blended families, shortchange the people you love most, and stir up exactly the conflict you’d want to protect them from.
And it’s not only about money.
Without a will, the ripple effects reach further than you might expect:
- You don’t pick who’s in charge. A court appoints someone to administer your estate, and getting them the legal authority to act can be slow and expensive.
- You don’t name a guardian for your children. That heart-wrenching decision can land with a court instead of with you.
- You lose every chance to plan ahead, for a specific gift, a cause you cared about, your taxes, or the family business.
The good news: this is the easy one to fix.
Here’s where the weight lifts. Everything above is preventable with a single, surprisingly simple step. A proper will hands the pen back to you: you choose who inherits, who’s in charge, and who raises your kids. For most people, it takes far less time and money than they imagined, and the relief of finally having it done is immediate.
If you don’t have a will, or the one you have no longer matches your life, this is the kind of thing that’s easy to keep putting off and easy to handle once you start. This article is general information, not legal advice; for guidance on your situation, please speak with a qualified Alberta lawyer.