Backgrounder – Undue Influence Recognition / Prevention Recommended Practices Guide Update Project

Why the BCLI Guide Is Being Updated One reason for updating and re-issuing the BCLI Guide is the Wills, Estates and Succession Amendment Act, 2020, which makes radical changes in the law of wills in British Columbia.2 One of the changes concerns the witnessing of will signature. [...] The remote witnessing provisions of the Wills, Estates and Succession Amendment Act, 2020 were brought into force retroactively to 18 March 2020.3 The provisions validating electronic wills are in force as of 1 December 2021.4 It is now possible for wills to be created in British Columbia with a computer, signed by the will-maker and witnesses using digital signatures, and stored as a computer fil. [...] These changes in law obviously alter the conventional paradigm in which the signature and witnessing of a professionally drafted will is typically supervised directly and at close hand by the legal practitioner who drew the will. [...] While the extent to which the new options of remote witnessing and electronic wills will be taken up cannot be predicted reliably in the short term, it is a fair bet that as time passes, the instances in which legal practitioners are able to supervise signature and witnessing of wills they have prepared in the immediate presence of all the players will be fewer. [...] of Psychology University of Toronto Emma McArthur Barrister and Solicitor Johns Southward LLP Project Timeline The project is expected to conclude in the fourth quarter of 2022 with the publication of a revised and updated version of the BCLI Guide.