Estate disputes rarely begin as legal questions. They begin when an executor stops answering emails, when a will says something nobody in the family expected, when one sibling has been living in the house since the funeral, or when the person who cared for a parent for years discovers they were left nothing. By the time anyone looks up what can be done, months have usually gone by, and in Alberta, one of the most valuable claims expires six months after the grant is issued, so the calendar matters as much as the merits.
Challenging a will in Alberta
A will can be set aside in whole or in part, and the grounds are narrower than families expect but wider than they are usually told.
Capacity is the most common. The question is whether the person understood what they owned, understood who would ordinarily expect to inherit from them, and understood what the document was doing, at the moment they signed it. A diagnosis of dementia does not settle that question, and neither does a lucid afternoon at a lawyer’s office.
Undue influence is the second. Persuasion, pressure and even nagging are not enough on their own, because the question is whether the person’s own wishes were overborne by somebody else. That is why these cases turn on isolation, on dependence, and on who arranged the appointment and sat in the room.
The remaining grounds are more mechanical. A will may not have been signed or witnessed properly, or the person may have signed something they had not read and did not understand, which the law treats as a want of knowledge and approval. Alberta legislation allows a court to validate a document that falls short of the formal requirements if it clearly records the person’s intent, so a defective will is not automatically worthless.
When the executor is the problem
Challenging the will and challenging the executor are different exercises, and the second is far more common.
A personal representative holds duties fixed by statute, including gathering in the assets, keeping them safe, administering the estate without undue delay, and accounting to the beneficiaries for what has been done. Where that is not happening, a beneficiary can apply to the Court of King’s Bench to compel a formal passing of accounts, which requires the executor to set out every receipt and disbursement with records behind them. Where the failure is serious, such as self dealing, sustained inaction or a conflict between the executor’s own interests and the estate, the Court can remove the personal representative and appoint someone else.
Slowness by itself is rarely enough, since estates take time and a year is not unusual. Refusing to communicate, refusing to account, and occupying estate property without paying for it are a different matter.
Being left out and the six-month deadline
Alberta law allows certain family members to claim maintenance and support from an estate where the deceased failed to make adequate provision for them. The people who qualify are defined by statute, and the list covers a spouse, an adult interdependent partner, a child under 18, an adult child who is unable to earn a livelihood by reason of mental or physical disability, an adult child between 18 and 22 who is in full-time education, and a minor grandchild or great-grandchild for whom the deceased stood in the place of a parent.
The deadline is the part worth acting on today. A claim must generally be brought within six months of the grant of probate or administration being issued. A court can allow a late application, but only against the part of the estate that has not yet been distributed, which is why a claim brought after the money has been distributed can be worth nothing, even if it would otherwise have succeeded.
The assets that never reach the estate
Some of the hardest disputes involve property that passes outside the will altogether, such as a house put into joint names, a bank account with an adult child added to it, or a beneficiary designation changed in the last months of a life.
These are worth examining rather than accepting. Where a parent transfers property to an adult child for nothing, the starting point in law is that the child holds it for the estate rather than as a gift, and it falls to the child to show that a gift was intended. Where a designation changed during a period of dependence or declining health, the same questions of capacity and influence arise as on a will.
How Keystone Legal handles estate disputes
Most estate disputes are better resolved without a trial, and the firm negotiates and mediates them whenever feasible, because the cost of a contested estate proceeding comes out of the same estate everyone is arguing over. That is not a promise that relationships survive, which no lawyer can deliver.
Where a matter is contested, it proceeds at the Court of King’s Bench, and the firm accepts contested estate work where the file runs through the Calgary Courts Centre. Advice, negotiation, and settlement are available anywhere in Alberta, and the practice is virtual, so meetings occur via video, telephone, and email, with in-person meetings available on request in Cochrane or Calgary.
If you are dealing with an estate dispute, or an executor who will not account to you, call (587) 328-3328.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the claim. A maintenance and support claim generally has to be brought within six months of the grant, which is the shortest deadline and the one most often missed. Other challenges run on longer limitation periods, though delay weakens all of them, particularly once the estate has been distributed.
Yes. A beneficiary can apply to the Court of King’s Bench to compel the formal passing of accounts, requiring the executor to account for every receipt and disbursement with supporting records.
Serious failure or conflict, including self-dealing, refusing to administer the estate, and holding an interest that conflicts with the beneficiaries. Being slow, on its own, is usually not sufficient.
Not necessarily. A transfer to an adult child for no consideration is presumed to be held for the estate, and the recipient must prove that a gift was intended.
