Will for Separated or Divorced in Alberta

What people who are separated or divorced should know

• Separation or divorce is the moment to look again at who you have named — to inherit, to act as your executor, or to make decisions for you.
• Check whether a former partner is still named as a beneficiary, executor, guardian or attorney.
• Being separated and being divorced are not always treated the same way, so check where you stand while things are still in progress.
• Beneficiary designations on insurance, pensions and registered accounts pass outside a will — update them separately.
• In Alberta, a will is governed by Alberta’s Wills and Succession Act.
• What separation or divorce does to a will in Alberta: Marriage on or after February 1, 2012 does not revoke your will. Divorce or a court finding that the marriage is void does not revoke the whole will, but it generally revokes gifts, powers of appointment, and executor/trustee/guardian appointments for the former spouse as if the former spouse had died before you, unless the will shows a contrary intention. Similar rules apply when an adult interdependent partnership ends, with statutory exceptions. Source: Wills and Succession Act, SA 2010, c W-12.2, ss 23(2), 25.