A Vancouver estate charged on a home the family cannot sell yet
There is no Vancouver probate fee. Probate is set by the province, and a Vancouver estate is charged British Columbia's schedule like every other one: nothing under $25,000, $6 per $1,000 up to $50,000, $14 per $1,000 above it, and a $200 filing fee. A $1,000,000 estate pays $13,650, in Vancouver or anywhere else in the province.
The catch is what that fee is charged on. In a great many Vancouver estates the home is very nearly the whole of it, so the fee is effectively calculated on the value of a house. It falls due when the application is filed, which is months before that house can be sold, and the ordering is what makes an expensive city hard on the families who live in it.
Estate Settlement Cost Calculator
Probate is one line on a longer bill. This adds up the whole cost of settling an estate, including the parts that fall due before any assets can be sold.
Professional fees are typical ranges, not fixed tariffs; a straightforward estate costs less and a contested one costs far more. Executor compensation is commonly around 2–5% of the estate where it is claimed at all, and family executors often waive it.
A fee measured against a house
At $14 per $1,000, every $100,000 of value above the $50,000 line adds $1,400, and nothing caps it. A long-held Vancouver home can carry a family's entire net worth, so the property alone often decides what the estate pays. The value used is the value as at the date of death, not what the family has available to them, and not necessarily what the house eventually sells for.
Whether a mortgage registered against the title reduces the value used for the fee is a real question with real money attached, and it belongs with the court registry or an estate lawyer rather than with an estimate. So does the treatment of property held outside British Columbia. These are details worth settling once, at the start, rather than correcting afterwards.
Months of costs before a dollar comes in
Nothing sells until the grant issues, and a grant commonly takes months. In the meantime the property tax instalment falls due, the insurer needs to be told the home is unoccupied and will often charge more or set conditions, the heat stays on, and any mortgage keeps drawing. Someone has to look in on the place. If it needs clearing or repairs before it can be listed, that is paid for up front as well.
The funeral does not wait either, and in Vancouver it is the most locally expensive part of the bill. A cemetery plot inside the city can cost several times one in a smaller community, sometimes more than a full cremation arranged elsewhere, with interment, opening and closing and the marker charged separately again. All of it is invoiced within weeks, while the estate's accounts are still shut.
The one thing that arrives on time
Life insurance paid to a named beneficiary never becomes part of the estate. It is not counted in the value the British Columbia fee is charged on, it does not need the grant to be released, and it is generally paid within weeks of the claim. In a city where the whole inheritance is locked inside a house, that is the money keeping the property insured, the taxes current and the funeral paid while everybody waits.
It is worth checking who is actually named. Designations made decades ago outlive the circumstances that produced them, and one naming a former spouse still governs. One naming the estate hands the proceeds back into the probated value and back into the wait, which defeats the purpose entirely. The same applies to an RRSP, a RRIF or a TFSA, where a named beneficiary generally receives the plan directly.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Vancouver probate fee?
No. Probate fees are provincial in Canada and no Canadian city charges its own. A Vancouver estate is charged British Columbia's schedule, the same one applied to estates in Nanaimo or Fort St John, and the only local part is which registry receives the application.
Our whole estate is the house. What will the fee be?
It is calculated on the estate value, so a $1,000,000 estate pays $13,650 and each further $100,000 adds $1,400. That is charged on the house whether or not it has been sold, which is why the fee usually has to be found from somewhere else.
Can the fee be paid after the house sells?
No. It is payable when the application is filed, and the house cannot be sold until the grant that application produces has issued. A family member normally advances it and is reimbursed by the estate later, so keep clear records of what was paid and by whom.
How long do we have to carry the property?
Until the grant issues and the sale completes, which together generally means many months. Property tax, insurance on a vacant home, utilities and any mortgage all continue through that period and are the family's problem in the meantime.
Does insurance money count toward the estate value?
Not when a living person is named as beneficiary. It passes to that person directly, stays out of the probated value, and is not charged the BC fee. Naming the estate instead brings the proceeds in and subjects them to both the fee and the wait.
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Probate is provincial, not municipal. A Vancouver estate pays the British Columbia rate — see probate fees in British Columbia for the exact schedule.