Quebec's New Account Declaration To More Easily Deal With Certain Co-Owned Accounts

• Published date: 02 November 2022
• Law Firm: Spiegel Sohmer
• Author: Mr Daniel Frajman

Quebec's new Act respecting remittance of deposits of money to account co-holders who are spouses or former spouses (also known as the Remittance of Deposits Act) ¹ (the "Act"), is generating interest.

The Act was passed in June 2022 and will come into force on December 8, 2022.

The purpose of the Act is to allow a surviving spouse or former spouse to take his or her share of a joint or co-owned account (i.e., an account with "co-holders", as the Act puts it) relating to the deposit of money in Quebec, it appears simply by presenting a death certificate, so long as the spouses had deposited (prior to the death) a declaration with the financial institution setting out the respective ownership share of the parties with respect to the account. This will save some time when accessing the account post-death as although an official Quebec death certificate will almost certainly be required (this can take a few months to obtain), there does not seem to be the need to provide a will, a will search or...