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Mine is at home and the next one will be too. I imagine most provinces have a similar registry as does BC. My Moms was registered as being at the Bank in her safety deposit box. But as she aged and moved and her banking needs changed it was in her night stand at her care home. We felt that was unsafe and moved it to our home for safe keeping as I was the executor. When we did a will search for probate and did probate I honestly answered where it was vs were it was supposed to be as per registry and had no issues as the dates and the lawyers name all matched. I had a friend that had a copy of his mothers and he went back to the notary to obtain the original but he had passed away, so he tracked down his wife and she told him that she had held on to all the papers until a few years ago......she burned them. And I have heard some not so good stories about retrieving wills from bank safety deposit boxes.

hmmmm Part of doing probate in BC was to provide proof that the will you had was the last legit will and to do that I had to apply for that proof and also had to give various names that my mother could have been known by. And of course every name was an additional charge. The certificate of the will search had to be included in the probate package.

Every will you make will nullify your previous one....but if you made 5 wills and will number 3 was the one used for probate....who would know the difference (if not registered)? I would review what options you have in Ontario and if keeping the original will in your possession is an option that is the way I would go. Also keep in mind if it was in a safety deposit box and your executor had signed access to the box.....the executor (or?) does not have to tell anyone right away about your death. Read between the lines on that one. Although, in BC, when you apply for a death certificate it will trigger notification to the province (medical insurance, drivers license, car registration and insurance etc.). I did contact all provincial and federal institutions about my mothers death fairly quickly but NOT her credit union. I had access to her account, online, to pay her few bills for her and that allowed me to pull off all of her records for the previous 7 years in various ways and formats. It helped me prove that some of her transactions with her Church (she lent them money) and other institutions were either complete or incomplete. When I went into the bank they immediately transferred her funds to a Estate Account and I lost access to her regular account ...... so my move was wise.

ps. Wills from a notary are usually much less costly

HI you DON'T have to register. But it is to your best interest to do so and it makes the probate process easier. It is only $17.00 to register and to do a search is $20 and $5 for each extra name....ie. Bill Smith, William Smith, William Wild Smith.

Maybe more expensive in Vancouver as is Toronto but can assure you that I doubt living in the suburbs is more expensive.