Estate Planning Checklist PEI

Estate planning on Prince Edward Island is not a single document — it is a coordinated set of legal instruments that cover your finances, your personal care, your healthcare, and the distribution of your assets after death. Since the Powers of Attorney and Personal Directives Act took effect on November 1, 2025, followed by the Adult Guardianship and Trusteeship Act on March 30, 2026, PEI's legal framework has been completely modernized. Old documents may no longer comply, and gaps in planning now carry steeper consequences than they did before.

Here is what a complete PEI estate plan actually requires.

The Four Core Documents

1. Detailed Power of Attorney (Form 2)

This covers your financial and property affairs — bank accounts, investments, tax filings, real estate, bill payments. Choose between immediate authority (Option A: effective now, continuing through incapacity) or springing authority (Option B: effective only when a capacity assessment confirms you can no longer decide for yourself). Form 1 is also immediate and continues through incapacity, but it has no springing trigger or scope limits.

Decide whether to grant general authority or restrict it to specific assets. Name your attorney, consider whether to appoint joint or alternate attorneys, and specify compensation and accounting obligations.

2. Personal Directive (Form 3)

This is the instrument many PEI families do not know exists. It covers non-healthcare personal decisions: where you live, who you associate with, your lifestyle, your education, your employment. Under the old law, these decisions fell into a legal gap that often required an expensive Supreme Court guardianship application to resolve.

The personal directive names an "agent" (distinct from the financial "attorney") who can make these decisions on your behalf. It is strictly springing — it only activates when you lose capacity.

3. Health Care Directive

This covers medical treatment decisions — consenting to or refusing surgery, diagnostic tests, medication, palliative care, and end-of-life wishes. It is governed by a separate statute, the Consent to Treatment and Health Care Directives Act, and names a "proxy" (not an attorney or agent).

The proxy's signature on the directive is required to validate their appointment. Without it, the proxy appointment is invalid. Give a copy of the completed directive to your family doctor and file it with your Health PEI records so hospital staff can access it during emergencies.

4. Will

This governs the distribution of your assets after death. Without a will, PEI's intestacy rules under the Probate Act dictate who inherits — and those default rules rarely match what families actually want. A will names your executor (the person who manages the estate through probate), specifies beneficiaries, and can include guardianship provisions for minor children.

Beneficiary Designations and Joint Accounts

Certain assets pass outside the will entirely:

• RRSPs and TFSAs with named beneficiaries go directly to those beneficiaries, bypassing probate
• Life insurance policies pay directly to the named beneficiary
• Joint bank accounts pass automatically to the surviving joint holder by right of survivorship
• Joint real estate held as joint tenants passes to the surviving co-owner

These designations override what the will says. Review them to make sure they are consistent with your overall plan — a forgotten ex-spouse still named as the beneficiary on an RRSP can inherit assets the will intended for someone else.

Execution Requirements

Every planning document must be properly executed. For the power of attorney and personal directive under Section 32 of the Act:

• Physical, in-person signing (no video witnessing — PEI did not authorize remote execution)
• An eligible witness who is at least 18, is not named as attorney or agent, is not a family member of the named attorney or agent, and is not their employee
• Wet-ink signatures on paper

For the health care directive, the proxy must also sign the directive to accept their appointment.

For the will, PEI requires two witnesses who are not beneficiaries under the will, both present at the same time.

Registration and Storage

• If the attorney may deal with real property, register the power of attorney at the Registry of Deeds for the relevant county ($77.25 fee)
• Store originals in a location the attorney and executor can access without needing the principal — not a safe deposit box that only the principal can open
• Provide your financial institutions with copies of the POA in advance, so the attorney is pre-registered for account access
• Give the health care directive to your doctor and Health PEI

Review Triggers

An estate plan is not permanent. Review and update your documents when:

• You marry, divorce, or separate (marriage on PEI may not automatically revoke a POA, but separation affects the healthcare hierarchy and can revoke proxy appointments)
• Your named attorney, agent, proxy, or executor dies, becomes incapacitated, or becomes unsuitable
• You acquire or sell significant assets (real estate, a business, an inheritance)
• PEI legislation changes (as it did in 2025–2026)
• Your family dynamics shift (new grandchildren, estranged relationships, blended family structures)

What Happens Without a Plan

Without a power of attorney, no one can manage your finances if you lose capacity. Your family must apply to the Supreme Court for a trusteeship order — a public, expensive, and supervised process. Without a health care directive, medical decisions fall to a statutory hierarchy that may not reflect your wishes. Without a will, intestacy rules determine inheritance, the court appoints an administrator, and family disagreements have no framework for resolution.

The Prince Edward Island Power of Attorney Kit covers the financial and personal directive components of this checklist, with step-by-step execution instructions, a coordination framework for all four documents, and post-execution storage and distribution tools.

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