Estate settlement

The protection falls away. Where the steps laid down by law are followed, the heirs answer for the deceased’s debts only up to what they receive. If the inventory was not made, or the notice of closure not published, they may have to answer for the debts beyond the value of their inheritance, including debts they knew nothing about.

It is the notice announcing publicly that the inventory is complete and where it may be consulted. It is registered at the RDPRM and published in a newspaper circulated in the locality of the deceased’s last known address. It is what makes the inventory opposable to creditors, and it is the step most often forgotten.

No, and this is a common mistake. Until the liquidation is complete, taking something of the deceased’s as though it were your own amounts to accepting the succession, debts included. Only items with no market value (clothes, photographs, keepsakes) may be handed over before then.

Six months from the opening of the succession, usually the date of death. The period is extended as needed so that sixty days remain after the closure of the inventory. After that, you are presumed to have accepted. Acceptance can also be tacit, by using property of the estate, for instance, or by releasing the liquidator from making the inventory.

Yes, unless you are the sole heir. It is wise to understand what the role entails before accepting it, and to decide before starting: a liquidator who walks away mid-course leaves the estate in a harder position than at the outset.

Yes. On a death, the transfer of a right of ownership in an immovable is made by a declaration of transmission received before a notary and published in the Land Register. Until it is published, the register still shows the deceased as owner and the property can be neither sold nor hypothecated.

Because some steps cannot be sped up. Before any distribution, the liquidator must file the income tax returns and obtain the certificates from Revenu Québec and the Canada Revenue Agency. Add the will search, probate of the will if it is not notarial, publication of the notice of closure, and the six months successors have to accept or renounce.

The law then determines the heirs through legal devolution, and the heirs must appoint a liquidator themselves. The notary prepares a declaration of heredity establishing who succeeds and in what proportion. Worth knowing: with no will a de facto spouse inherits nothing, except in a parental union, where they take one third.

Yes, even when the family is sure it knows where the will is. It is carried out in the registers of the Chambre des notaires du Québec and the Barreau, and it reveals whether a will more recent than the one at hand exists. A later will revokes the earlier one and changes the whole liquidation.

It depends on a detail almost nobody knows: a liquidator who is NOT an heir is entitled to remuneration, set by the will, failing that by the heirs, and failing agreement by the court. A liquidator who is themselves an heir cannot claim it, unless the will provides for it or the heirs agree to grant it. In every case they are entitled to reimbursement of the expenses incurred for the estate, and those costs are borne by the estate.