This video is about court costs. Typically and historically, court costs often came out of the estate. The unsuccessful party did not have to pay the winning party and that was the way it was for many, many years. Approximately 20 years ago in British Columbia, the courts began to be more discriminated on how the award of court costs was made.

There are typically a few different scenarios that can have different implication for costs. If for example, the reason of the court application is the testator’s own fault, for example, the will is ambiguous, then the court will typically award court costs out of the estate. If on the other hand, the parties are having a legal dispute over the validity of a will or such things, the court has a discretion to award cost and might very well award court costs to the winning party against the losing party, that is, the losing party would have to pay a contribution towards the legal fees of the winning party.

Typically an executor is entitled to be reimbursed for his or her legal fees if incurred properly. There’s a great number of different scenarios of cost in this video. The one I caution litigants about is the award of special costs. If for example a litigant claims undue influence against another party and fails to prove it at court, the trial judge may very well award special costs against the losing party which means that the losing party has to pay 100 percent of the winning party’s legal fees. That can be a very significant sum of money.