What happens to my assets upon death if I am single and have no dependants?

Here’s the answer to this week’s reader question.  

What happens to money upon death if someone’s single and has no dependants?

—Nsia

When you’re single with no kids, what happens to your stuff after you pass?

I like this question because of the connection to my real estate practice. It’s actually something I deal with quite a bit, especially when working with first-time home buyers. And I always have a conversation with them about now being a good time to get a will drawn up, and what will happen to their assets if they die without a will, based on their circumstances. In Alberta, where I practice, if you die without a will, the Wills and Succession Act governs how your assets will be distributed amongst your family—not you.

When you have a will

The key difference is with a will in place, you decide where your assets end up. But without a will in place, your province’s legislation decides instead.

I have people come into my office, I feel like at least once a month, worried that if they don’t have a will, their assets could just end up in the hands of the government after they pass. It could happen, but it’s pretty unlikely. That only occurs if no one comes forward to administer your estate.

In Alberta, there are two ways a person gets authority to distribute the assets of someone who’s died: through a grant of probate or a grant of administration. They’re essentially the same process, just a grant of probate is for a person who died testate (i.e. with a will) and a grant of administration is for someone who died without one. Generally speaking, these two processes are common across Canada, though each province may have different names for them.

Both these grants are an order from the court saying that someone has the authority to administer the assets of someone’s estate—either in accordance with the will they left behind or in accordance with their province’s intestate legislation if they died without a will.

Technically, anyone could come forward to apply to administer the estate, but it’s unlikely people will simply step in. People are usually stepping into that kind of role because they have an interest in doing so.

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When there’s no will

We’ve talked about what the testate and intestate distribution process looks like in Alberta—and across Canada generally speaking—so now we can get into what happens in this specific case.

Assuming the hypothetical person in question has no will, no adult interdependant partner and no kids, then where their assets go after they pass depends on what family they have left behind. Under Section 67 of Alberta’s Wills and Succession Act, parents of the deceased split the assets equally. If only one parent is alive, then they get all the assets. If there are no surviving parents, the intestate estate then goes to the siblings of the deceased in equal amounts. In general, other provinces follow a similar distribution pattern.

If there are no surviving siblings, then you’re looking at grandparents. Half of the deceased’s assets go to the surviving grandparents on one parent’s side and half to the other parent’s side.

I’ve researched two other provinces’s legislation: British Columbia’s Wills, Estates and Succession Act and Manitoba’s Intestate Succession Act. Both provinces follow the same order of priority as Alberta as to who gets the assets of a single, no-dependant person after they pass: parents, grandparents, then siblings. While there is a process that kicks in if someone passes away without parents, grandparents or siblings, it is very rare that anyone would have to go further than that.

Get a will

There are a lot of hypotheticals at play when it comes to who could get what after we die, but the bottom line is simple. With a will in place you get to decide where your assets go. Without one, legislation decides for you.

Read more from this issue of The Get:

1. Are peptides worth the money? Should Canadians buy in? 
2. Cheap skincare products that actually work
3. What does “pay transparency” even mean? Aman Malhi knows
4. DIY versus hiring someone to fix home repairs in Canada