Contesting a Will

I was left out of my parent's will. Can I contest it?

Depends on two things: province and basis. In BC, yes in the strongest sense — adult children, independent or not, can seek variation of an unfair will within 180 days of the grant. Elsewhere in common-law Canada, adult children need either a validity ground (capacity, undue influence) or genuine dependency for a support claim — "I'm a child, therefore entitled" is not the law in Ontario. In Quebec, the variation route doesn't exist. This is why the first consultation question is always: where was the estate, and what's your actual ground?

How long do I have?

Short and jurisdiction-specific: BC variation — 180 days from the representation grant (serve within 30 days after); Ontario dependant support — generally 6 months from the certificate of appointment (late claims only against what remains undistributed, by leave); Ontario spousal election — its own 6-month regime; validity challenges — before probate ideally, and subject to general limitation principles afterward. Executors distribute once windows pass. If a grant exists, establish its date today and calendar everything from it.

Dad had dementia when he signed. Does that invalidate the will?

Not automatically — capacity is task-specific and moment-specific. The question is whether, when instructions were given and the will signed, he understood the will-making act, his property, and the people with claims on him; a diagnosis is the start of the inquiry, not its end. What decides: medical records around those dates, the drafting lawyer's notes (did they probe capacity? follow the golden-rule practices?), and how radical the departure from prior wills was. Get the records held and reviewed before forming the family's theory of the case.

My sibling was caregiver, isolated Mum, and the new will gives them everything. Is that undue influence?

It's the classic fact-pattern for it — isolation, dependency, orchestration of the will-making, a dramatic change benefiting the orchestrator — and courts treat those "suspicious circumstances" as demanding real explanation from the will's proponent. But pattern is not proof: influence must have overborne her actual wishes, and devoted caregiving with a grateful will is also a true story courts see. Evidence wins: who chose the lawyer, who was in the room, prior wills, her own statements, capacity evidence. Preserve communications now and let the drafting file speak.

Who pays for all this if I challenge and lose?

Increasingly, you. The old assumption that the estate funds all sides is gone: modern costs principles put losing parties — especially those who ran weak or purely tactical challenges — at real risk of paying their own costs and a share of the winners'. Genuine issues raised reasonably (a real capacity question the will-maker's own conduct created) still attract sympathetic costs treatment. Two disciplines follow: get the merits priced independently before filing, and treat mediation as the main event — most of these cases end there, with the estate's value intact enough to divide.