How to Carry Out a Will Search

A will search tells you whether a deceased person registered a will in one of the two official Quebec registers. To carry out a will search you’ll need official proof of death. You must then request a will search in both official registers: the Chambre des notaires (professional order of notaries) and the Barreau (professional order of lawyers).

Obtain official proof of death

To carry out a will search you’ll need either a “Copy of an Act of Death” or a “Death Certificate“. You can request one on the website of the Directeur de l’état civil (director of civil status).

Both documents contain information regarding the deceased person. The copy of the act of death contains complete information, whereas the death certificate only contains some information. To find out more about the information included in each of these documents, visit the Directeur de l’état civil’s website.

Important! The document provided by the funeral home (sometimes called an “attestation of death”) cannot be used for a will search. You’ll need one of the two documents mentioned above, issued by the Directeur de l’état civil. If you don’t submit the right document, you’ll have to start the process over.

Ask for a will search in both official registers 

There are two official will registers in Quebec: one is kept by the Chambre des notaires du Québec and the other by the Barreau du Québec. They are independent of each other. You must therefore make two search requests, that is, one for each register.  If you search only one, you won’t know if there’s a more recent will in the other register.

For each will search, you’ll need the following information about the deceased:

• full name
• date of birth and date of death
• civil status (whether single, married, divorced)
• social insurance number
• previous addresses

The more information you provide, and the more accurate the information, the quicker the will searches can be carried out.

The Chambre des notaires and the Barreau will not send you the will. Instead, they’ll send you a “search certificate” indicating whether a will was registered with them. If it was, the certificate will indicate the contact information of the notary or lawyer who has the will.   

You can ask a notary or lawyer to carry out the will search. In this case, you’ll have to pay their professional fees, in addition to the cost of the will search.