In Ontario, a Will (other than a holograph Will), must be in writing
and signed by the testator at the end and in the presence of two
witnesses who must also sign the Will in the presence of a testator and
in the presence of
each other. You need two witnesses. You all need to witness each other sign.
A testator would use his customary signature to sign the Will. A
witness should not be a beneficiary or the spouse of a beneficiary.
This is why at Haber and Associates, we use lawyers as witnesses
instead of any of your family members. If a witness is a beneficiary
or a spouse of a beneficiary, the gift to that beneficiary may be
invalid even though the execution of the Will is valid. If you get
into this mess, in order to prove that a gift to a witness or a spouse
of a witness is valid, an application would have to be made to the
Superior Court of Justice to ensure there was no undue influence to the
testator.
An executor or a spouse of an executor may act as a witness so long as
neither of them are beneficiaries. It is preferable to have an
Affidavit of Execution completed immediately after the Will is signed.
This averts problems if the witnesses can’t be located and would
perhaps avoid the necessity of proving the Will. We then normally
execute one copy and make several true copies of the Will and keep the
original of the Will in our solicitors vault.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Matt Lalande at Haber and Associates.