In 2016, 96-year-old Ontario woman Sarah Stoller died with an estate worth nearly $7 million. She had a will, but nobody could find the original. Her niece and nephew argued she may have deliberately destroyed it, and the dispute ended up in court. The judge ultimately found it was more likely lost or misplaced and accepted a copy.
And a will is just one thing your family may need to find.
Here are seven more you should get in order before you die.
Where Your Important Documents Are
Kim Kuffner was dying in a Saskatchewan hospital when she became too weak to speak or even write with a pen. But she could still use a stylus, so she typed a message on her iPad titled “My holographic will,” named her niece Rheanne Haines as executor, and explained how she wanted her estate divided.
Kuffner died two days later. In Haines v. Kuffner Estate, the court ultimately recognized that iPad message as her will.
Most people won’t end up in a situation that extreme, but the lesson is simple: your family needs to know exactly what estate documents exist and where to find them.
That means your will, powers of attorney, insurance policies, trust documents, and any marriage or divorce agreements that could affect the estate.
And don’t assume a PDF sitting on your laptop automatically solves the problem. Electronic-will rules still vary across Canada. B.C., for example, expressly recognizes electronic wills.
Your executor should know exactly where the important documents are and who holds the originals.
Where All Your Money Is
If I gave your spouse ten minutes right now, could they name every place where you have money?
They probably know about the house, your main bank account, and maybe your RRSP. But what about the pension from a job you left 15 years ago? A GIC at another bank? An old life insurance policy? An online brokerage account, crypto, foreign property, or a loan somebody still owes you?
And “someone will eventually find it” isn’t much of a system.
As of December 2025, the Bank of Canada’s Unclaimed Properties Office was holding about $1.6 billion across 3.6 million unclaimed balances. Eligible balances from federally regulated banks and trust companies can eventually end up there when accounts sit inactive and the owner can’t be reached.
The fix is simple: make a one-page financial inventory.
List every institution, what you have there, any useful account or policy reference, and who to contact. Include your debts too.
You don’t need balances, passwords, or PINs. You’re not giving your family the keys to everything. You’re giving them a map so they know what actually exists.
How the Bills Get Paid
If you died on Friday, where would Monday’s money come from?
The mortgage or rent is still due. So are utilities, insurance, car payments, groceries, childcare, and probably funeral expenses.
And your family shouldn’t assume they can simply keep using an account that was only in your name. RBC Royal Trust’s executor guide notes that once a financial institution is notified of a client’s death, the deceased’s accounts may be frozen, although certain expenses can still be paid directly. These can include funeral costs, property taxes, utilities, and home or auto insurance.
The Alberta government similarly notes that a bank may advance money directly from the deceased’s account to a funeral home.
So ask yourself: could your household operate for 30 days without you?
Your family should know which accounts pay the bills, what comes out automatically, where accessible cash is kept, what insurance exists, and who to call at the bank.
The goal isn’t to make everything joint. It’s to make sure your family isn’t financially blind when the bills keep coming.
If you’re watching this and realizing your family would be guessing, that’s exactly what we fix at Blueprint Financial. We help Canadians organise their estates, plan for the tax bill, and make sure nobody’s left digging through a filing cabinet. Book a discovery call at blueprintfinancial.ca. Build the life you want, with the right Blueprint.
What the Tax Bill Could Look Like
Canada doesn’t have a traditional inheritance tax, but that doesn’t mean death is tax-free.
When someone dies, the CRA generally treats many capital assets as though they were sold at fair market value immediately before death. It’s called a deemed disposition. CRA: Capital gains when someone dies
Say your parents bought a cottage for $250,000, and it’s worth $900,000 when the last parent dies. That’s a $650,000 capital gain.
Under the current rules, the general capital gains inclusion rate is 50%, after the government confirmed it would not proceed with the proposed increase. Department of Finance Canada: 2026 Tax Expenditures Report
So $325,000 would be included in taxable income. That’s not a $325,000 tax bill. The actual tax depends on things like the adjusted cost base, province, other income, losses, whether the property qualified as a principal residence, and whether a spousal rollover applies.
RRSPs can be another big surprise. In a current, Jacques dies with a $185,000 RRSP and names his estate as beneficiary. The entire $185,000 is initially included as income on his final return. Different treatment can apply when the money passes to a qualifying spouse or dependant. CRA: Jacques’s $185,000 RRSP example
And that’s why the real problem can be liquidity. Your estate might own a valuable cottage, rental property, business, or investments but very little cash.
You can be asset-rich and cash-poor at exactly the wrong time.
And this is also why your executor shouldn’t rush to distribute the estate before the tax side is settled. The CRA can hold a legal representative personally liable for certain unpaid amounts if assets are distributed before those obligations are dealt with.
Your family doesn’t need to know the exact tax bill. But they should know one may be coming, which assets could create it, who the accountant is, and where the cash to pay it could come sfrom.
How to Get Into Your Digital Life
Your phone may be the key to your entire financial life.
In Re Wada Estate, a 2026 Alberta case, the parents of a teenager who died were trying to access his Apple account. They were already the legal administrators of his estate, but Apple wanted an additional court order. The dispute ended up before the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, which ruled that the existing grant already gave them authority over his digital assets. Alberta Law Reform Institute: Re Wada Estate
The point is that accessing someone’s digital life after death can be much more complicated than hitting “forgot password.”
Think about the chain: phone → email → two-factor authentication → password manager → banking, investments and documents. If your family gets stuck at the first step, everything after it gets harder.
There are tools designed for this. Apple’s Legacy Contact lets you designate someone to request certain account data after your death using an access key and death certificate. Google offers a similar planning tool called Inactive Account Manager.
And don’t put your passwords directly in your will. A probated will can become a public record.
Instead, your family should know which legacy tools you’ve set up, where the access instructions are stored, and how your password manager works.
Who Your Family Needs to Call
Your spouse shouldn’t be searching through your Gmail three days after you die trying to remember whether your accountant’s name was Steve or Scott.
Make a simple “call these people” list.
Depending on your situation, that might include your executor, lawyer, accountant, financial planner, insurance company or broker, employer or HR department, pension administrator, business partner, or property manager.
The list only needs four things:
Name. Company. Phone or email. What they handle.
Your family does not need to understand tax filings, insurance claims, pension rules, or your corporate structure.
They just need to know who does.
This can be one of the simplest pages in your whole estate file, but it may save your family hours of digging through emails, old statements, and contact lists while they’re trying to deal with everything else.
And there’s one category no lawyer, accountant, or financial advisor can answer for you.
What Your Will Doesn’t Say
Your will can say who gets your money and property, and who is responsible for managing your estate. But it can’t replace actually telling your family what you want.
Do you want to be buried or cremated? Who takes the dog? Are there family photos or heirlooms you care about? Do you hope the cottage stays in the family, or would you be perfectly happy if the kids sold it?
The federal government recommends talking to your family about your funeral wishes and telling them where those instructions are kept.
You can also leave personal instructions or a letter of wishes with your estate documents, but don’t assume an informal note overrides your will.
The point is simple: don’t make three grieving people reconstruct what you wanted from three conversations they half remember.
Write it down, talk about it, and make sure someone knows where to find it.
Put It All in One Place
So after all seven of these, what would I actually do?
I wouldn’t create some giant hundred-page estate binder. I’d make one simple folder that gives my family a map.
Inside, I’d have:
- Documents: where the will, powers of attorney, insurance policies, and other important legal documents are.
- Money: a one-page list of every account, investment, pension, insurance policy, property, and debt.
- Household bills: what gets paid, from where, and what happens automatically.
- Tax: who the accountant is and which assets could create a large tax bill.
- Digital access: how your legacy contacts, password manager, and important online accounts are set up.
- People to call: lawyer, accountant, advisor, insurer, employer, pension administrator.
- Personal wishes: the things your legal documents don’t fully explain.
And right at the front, put one line:
Last updated: ______
Then once a year, open the folder and make sure it’s still accurate.
Your family doesn’t need to understand your entire financial life.
They just need a map.
And if the tax part is the piece that made you uncomfortable, good. That’s exactly the part most families never see coming—and it’s where we spend much of our time at Blueprint Financial.
If you want help building a plan around your own situation, visit Blueprint Financial and explore our financial planning services.
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