(604) 230-1068 info@westcoastwills.com 華人律師
(604) 230-1068 info@westcoastwills.com 華人律師

Probate lawyers you can trust

Our estate lawyers in Vancouver and surrounding areas routinely help executors with estates. We also help families and administrators deal with estates when someone has died without a will (called intestate). The process is the same for both situations, but much more frustrating without a will.

Handling an estate is often an overwhelming task, made especially difficult as the executor is typically also grieving at this time.   What’s worse, personal liability can fall on an executor for making mistakes while administering an estate. This makes it crucial for executors to obtain legal advice from the start from an experienced probate lawyer.

Why Choose Us

Flat Fees

95% of our clients are charged predictable flat rates.

Specialization

We focus only on estate planning, probate, tax and corporate law.

Respected

With awards won and hundreds of 5-star reviews, we’re well known for our top-quality advice and friendly service.

Charitable

We donate 1% of all revenue to charity.

How We Can Help

At a consultation meeting with one of our probate lawyers, executors and administrators get fully educated on what needs to be done and how to do it. At that meeting, executors can choose to either hire the probate lawyer for further work on the estate or choose to take the advice and try to do everything themselves. Most of the time, executors choose to hire our estate lawyer to apply for probate on their behalf.

Even if an application for probate is not required, many of the same steps outside of this process are needed. Of course, our probate lawyers can help with any of these essential steps. For a list of some of the things a probate lawyer can help with, please see our resource.

If the estate in question has a company in it, there’s a chance that it could be subject to an absurd triple taxation by CRA. Our corporate and tax lawyers help executors decrease the amount of taxes in such cases. This often saves tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax.

Client Reviews

Our Clients Love Us

Don’t just take our word for it; here’s a sample of what clients are saying about us.

  • “Sadly I have lost three family members over the last 4 years, and have had to take on executor duties. West Coast Wills helped me, first during the COVID lockdown phase when everything was extra difficult, and more recently with both unexpected and expected deaths of my parents. Their advice about asset management and planning actually saved tens of thousands of dollars for my father’s estate which I very much appreciate. My wife and I also did our wills with them which has given us peace of mind.”

    Torsten Nielsen

  • “We hired West Coast Wills & Estates after a less than satisfactory experience with another law firm. We have been very pleased the the professionalism, responsiveness, and good customer service. As an attorney myself, I would not hesitate to recommend the firm to anyone seeking professional advice on trusts and estates issues.”

    Erik Autor

  • “My wife died in late January and I turned to West Coast Wills & Estates to assist me with probating her will. Aron Chitsaz was the lawyer that I dealt with. He was very understanding, competent and patient with me throughout this emotional and , sometimes, frustrating procedure. I received prompt and excellent service both in answering my inquiries and in completing the necessary documentation for the probate. I was impressed that from the time that the probate documents were filed to the time a settlement request was received was only about six weeks. This illustrates that Aron was thorough in the preparation of the necessary documents for probate. I was also pleased that Westcoast Wills charged me a fixed cost for completing the probate rather than having an open ended arrangement. I was very pleased with the service that I got from Westcoast Wills and Aron Chitsaz. I will use them again to complete my own will.”

    Robin Smith

  • “The people at Westcoast Wills and Estates were extremely kind, informative and responsive. During such a difficult time these attributes were most appreciated. Thank you so much for all your help and patience.”

    Michelle Garvin

Probate Resources

These are more reading materials about probate. If you have more questions, please contact us.

  • Help With Probate

    A probate lawyer from Westcoast Wills & Estates can ease the burden on executors and estate administrators.

  • BC Probate Fee Calculator

    Use our BC probate fee calculator below to see how much probate fee will be charged by Court.

  • Probate Law FAQs

    Being an executor is a hard, thankless job. What’s worse is that executors can be sued personally if…

Probate Law FAQs

Here are some of the most common questions that our lawyers routinely hear.

Probate means to “prove.”  In the case of wills, it refers to the process of proving to the court that a will is legally valid as the last will and disclosing all of the assets in the estate. Oftentimes people loosely use the word “probate” to refer to the much broader process of estate administration though – only a part of which is applying for probate from the court. Estate administration ranges from arranging the funeral, preparing the probate application, filing taxes, paying other debts, distributing the estate, and dozens of steps in between.

Probate is handled by the Supreme Court of BC. The Vancouver Probate Registry currently has a roughly two month delay between the time an application is received and the time that they approve the application. In recent years, that delay has been as much as six months and as short as two weeks. Other court registries have different delay times, but dealing with a registry out of town has its own challenges. See here for a map of the different Supreme Court probate registries throughout the province:  https://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/supreme_court/court_locations_and_contacts.aspx

Simply speaking, the probate fee is a tax charged by the court to approve a will, or in the case of an intestate’s estate, approve the administrator of the estate. In BC, the fee is currently roughly 1.4% of all the assets passing through the estate. We have a probate fee calculator here to help you approximate what the probate fee will be.

More Probate Law FAQs

We answer other common questions in our probate FAQs.

View All FAQs

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