Family Maintenance and Support from the Estate of a Person Who Stood in the Place of a Parent, Final Report 117 recommends that the Wills and Succession Act be reformed to allow a child to apply for family maintenance and support from the estate of a person who stood in the place of a parent.

Who is a Person Standing in the Place of a Parent?
To be in place of a parent a person must be the legal spouse or adult interdependent partner of the child’s parent and must have demonstrated a settled intention to treat the child as their own. Step-parents are often persons standing in the place of a parent.

Closing a Gap in the Law
This recommendation would close a gap in the law about child support. A child may apply for support from a person standing in the place of a parent while the person is alive, but not after the person’s death. ALRI has concluded that children should be able to apply for support in both situations. ALRI recommendations are based on widespread consultation including three online surveys targeted at the general public. We had over 900 responses to these surveys and over 12,000 qualitative comments. The majority of respondents agreed with our recommendations. We also consulted with lawyers who practice wills and estates or family law. Their feedback helped us refine our recommendations.

Reform Would Provide Consistency with other Legislation
ALRI’s recommendations would make the Wills and Succession Act consistent with other provincial legislation that provides benefits to a child with a person standing in the place of a parent, like the Family Law Act, the Fatal Accidents Act, and the Workers’ Compensation Act.

Our recommendations would ensure that all children would be treated equally under the law and that their best interests would be the main consideration.