Seven Reasons Canadians Avoid Writing a Will (and the Counterargument to Each)

Across half a dozen years of Canadian survey data, the headline number barely moves. A 2024 Angus Reid Institute poll found that 51% of Canadian adults said they had no last will and testament; a 2023 reading from the same institute put it at 50%; a 2025 Angus Reid update was within the same range.^[1] Younger Canadians push the number much higher — roughly four in five under 35 say they have no will. Older Canadians do better but still leave a meaningful share of households exposed; even among those aged 55+, roughly one in five report no will in place.

The interesting question is not the percentage but the reasoning. When Canadians are asked why they don't have a will, the same seven responses recur. None of them are stupid. All of them have specific counterarguments. This piece walks through each, in the order they tend to appear in survey responses, and offers the practical reply.

Reason 1 — "I don't have enough to make it worth doing" #

This is the most common single response in Canadian survey work, and it rests on a misunderstanding of what wills are for. A will is not gated by an asset threshold. It does three things at any net worth:

• Names the person who will handle the estate (the executor)
• Decides where things go (rather than leaving the provincial intestacy formula to decide)
• Names a guardian for minor children, if any

For a renter with $3,000 in savings, the residue clause may seem trivial. But the executor naming alone — the person who has the legal authority to access accounts, deal with the landlord, dispose of belongings, manage the social-media accounts, and rehome the pet — is worth the document. Without a will, the people who care about you end up navigating that process under provincial intestacy law, which prioritizes legal relatives over chosen family in most cases.

A common reframing — a will is a logistics document as much as an inheritance document. The logistics matter at every asset level.

Reason 2 — "I find it too uncomfortable to think about" #

This is usually the most honest answer, and the one that resists counterargument the most. Estate planning sits adjacent to mortality, and most people are not eager to spend a weekend afternoon contemplating their own death.

Two things tend to reduce the discomfort. First, the actual decisions are usually less heavy than people fear — they're administrative, not existential. Who is your executor? Who gets the residue? Who is the guardian if you have children? Few of those decisions require a long meditation on death; most have a fairly obvious answer for the writer's actual life situation.

Second, the discomfort is front-loaded. The document is signed once, then put away. Subsequent reviews take ten minutes. The day-one effort buys multi-year peace of mind. Will-drafters consistently report feeling lighter after, not heavier — partly because the document is then done and the recurring background thought "I should really do that" stops looping.

If the discomfort is genuinely paralyzing, working with someone else — a partner, an adult child, a friend — often dissolves it. Estate planning in pairs is faster than estate planning alone.

Reason 3 — "It's too expensive" #

This was a stronger objection in 2010 than it is in 2026. Canadian estate-planning costs now span a wide range:

• DIY paper-and-template wills (free to ~$50). Legal blank forms exist but are easy to fill out wrong, and the witnessing requirements still apply. Not generally recommended for anyone with complexity.
• DIY-assisted online services ($30-200). Software-guided drafting that produces a province-compliant document. Suitable for simple-to-moderate situations.
• Lawyer-drafted basic wills ($400-1,200). The traditional option. Worth it for any complexity beyond standard.
• Lawyer-drafted complex estate plans ($1,500-10,000+). Suitable for high-net-worth, business owners, blended families with material assets, special-needs dependants, or significant tax planning.

For a household with limited budget, the relevant comparison is not "lawyer vs nothing" — it's "DIY-assisted will vs nothing." A $50-100 will is dramatically better than no will at all, and meets statutory requirements in all common-law Canadian provinces if it's signed and witnessed properly. See our pillar on how to write a will in Canada for the formal-validity requirements.

Reason 4 — "I'll do it when I'm older" #

Broadly true — survey data shows will-ownership doesn't cross the halfway mark until the 55+ age bracket, meaning most Canadians who eventually write a will are doing it in their 40s or 50s, not their 20s or 30s.^[1] The problem is that the intervening years are usually the years when intestacy outcomes do the most damage.

The pattern fits the life curve. A single 22-year-old has a relatively benign intestacy outcome (parents inherit). A 28-year-old with a common-law partner in Ontario has a damaging intestacy outcome (partner inherits nothing automatically). A 35-year-old with two young children has a high-stakes intestacy outcome (children's inheritance is held in court trust, no guardian is named). A 45-year-old with a blended family has a complex and contentious intestacy outcome (multiple competing claims).

Putting the will off until "later" usually means leaving it undone through the highest-leverage decades.

Reason 5 — "My family will figure it out" #

They will figure something out — within the constraints of provincial intestacy law. The figured-out version depends on which province and which household configuration.

A few representative examples:

• Ontario, common-law partner. In most cases the partner has no automatic share (a narrow 2025 reform gives inheritance rights only to common-law partners who were in a "parental union" — cohabiting as a couple and parenting a shared child — which doesn't cover most common-law relationships). Outside that narrow case, the partner can apply for dependant support if they were financially dependent, but the application is fact-driven, contestable, and slow. The deceased's parents may end up inheriting the apartment the partner has lived in for five years.^[3]
• British Columbia, married with stepchildren. Under WESA, the spouse takes the household goods plus a preferential share and a portion of the remainder; the deceased's biological children take the rest. Stepchildren who were never adopted get nothing under intestacy.^[4]
• Any province, minor children with both parents deceased. The court appoints a guardian. The court tries to do well by the children but lacks the deceased's preference and personal knowledge.

The "figure it out" outcome is the law's default. A will replaces the default with the writer's actual wishes.

Reason 6 — "I don't know how" #

Reasonable. Will-drafting was historically a closed expert practice and the vocabulary (executor, residue, codicil, testator, beneficiary) is unfamiliar. The good news is that the structure of a basic Canadian will is not actually complicated.

A simple Canadian will is built from a few decisions:

1. Who is the executor?
2. Who is the alternate executor (in case the first cannot act)?
3. Who gets the residue?
4. Who gets the residue if the first beneficiary predeceases you?
5. If you have minor children, who is the guardian and the alternate guardian?
6. Are there specific gifts to specific people (optional)?
7. Where is the will signed and witnessed?

A DIY-assisted tool walks through these decisions in order and produces the document. Most users finish in 20-60 minutes. Our will preparation checklist covers the document and information you need before starting.

Reason 7 — "Wills are for rich people / I don't trust the legal system" #

Both versions of this objection share a structure — they assume wills are an expensive ritual that primarily benefits institutions rather than the writer. Neither holds up well.

Wills are not for rich people. Wills disproportionately help moderate-income households because intestacy outcomes hit harder when the estate is a single asset (a home, a vehicle, a pension) and a contested distribution can swallow the asset. A $1.2-million estate can absorb a six-month probate dispute; a $180,000 estate often cannot.

Wills do not require the legal system to function. Most wills are administered by family without going to court at all. Probate (the court-supervised verification of the will) is required in many cases for institutions to release assets, but the will itself remains private from drafting through to administration — only the probated version becomes part of the public court record, and only in provinces that require probate for the relevant asset.

Distrust of the legal system is a reason to do your own paperwork carefully, not a reason to skip it. A will is the one document that prevents the legal system from making decisions on your behalf without your input.

The pattern across all seven #

The seven reasons share an underlying structure. They are framed in absolutes — "not enough yet," "too expensive," "too uncomfortable" — when the actual situation is one of degree. A modest will is dramatically better than no will. A short uncomfortable hour is dramatically better than no hour. A $50 DIY-assisted draft is dramatically better than a perfect $1,200 draft that never gets written.

The single best heuristic for whether to start: if you have anyone in your life whose inheritance, guardianship, or executor role you'd care about — partner, child, pet, sibling, charity, close friend — a will is the way to make that care binding.

What we focus on at It's Simple Will #

The It's Simple Will questionnaire was built specifically for the household configurations that make intestacy outcomes worst — common-law partners, blended families, parents of young children, single Canadians with chosen-family beneficiaries. The Conductor walks through the seven structural decisions above in plain English, with province-appropriate defaults. The output is a legally valid will for the nine common-law provinces and three territories.

If your situation is straightforward, the questionnaire takes 20-40 minutes and produces a complete document. If your situation is complex, you can finish the questionnaire and bring the draft to a lawyer for review — the cost of that combination is usually below the cost of a fully lawyer-drafted will.

Start at app.itssimplewill.ca. If you're still uncertain whether you need a will at all, the why you need a will article walks through specific household configurations and what happens to each under intestacy.