‘I can’t do anything here’: Woman still waiting for Ontario death certificate months after her aunt died

A ServiceOntario location is shown on Saturday Jan. 27, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives

Emma Jackson said she has spent a frustrating five months waiting to settle her aunt’s estate as she continues to wait for her Ontario death certificate to be delivered.

Jackson, who resides near Manchester, England, said her aunt Ruth died in Picton, Ont. back in May and she was tasked with settling her estate in the United Kingdom. She said in order to apply for probate, an Ontario death certificate is required.

“I’ve got a property I need to sell,” she said. “I’ve got a bank account that I can’t access.”

She said her aunt, who was born in England and moved to Canada back in the 1970s, worked as a teacher in Prince Edward County.

Jackson said she was tasked with settling the UK estate, while a local lawyer in Picton handled the Canadian will.

She said she was unable to get the required documentation from the funeral home and the lawyer in Canada explained how she could apply for a death certificate.

Jackson said she assumed applying for a death certificate would be a fairly “straightforward” process.

“I just thought I’ll wait a few weeks and wait for the death to be registered,” she told CP24.com earlier this month.

“It’s done quite quickly here in the UK so I just assumed it was the same in Canada.”

In emails to CP24, multiple will and estate experts told CP24 that typically proof of death from the funeral home is enough to settle an estate. Delays may occur when a formal death certificate is required to apply for probate, which is the legal process to determine the authenticity of a Will and who has the right to manage the estate.

Jackson said when she first applied for the death certificate on May 20, she was told at that time that the wait would be about 12 weeks.

“I kept on checking. So you go online to check the status of the certificate, and every time I went on it was just saying the death wasn’t registered,” she said.

When she inquired with the local registry office in Prince Edward County, she said they informed her that they had not yet received the paperwork to register the death.

“It took six weeks for the funeral home to send the death documents, the registration documents, to the local registry office,” she said.

“I think they took like another week to send it to Ontario. And then I found out that it was actually 12 weeks from the date they received the documents.”

According to ServiceOntario’s website, death registrations are now taking up to 16 weeks to process.

In a statement to CP24.com, a spokesperson for the ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement said ServiceOntario is experiencing “a high volume of vital events registrations.”

“We are diligently working to process requests as quickly as possible and are always looking for ways to reduce processing times,” the statement read.

“If an individual requires a vital event document urgently, they may contact ServiceOntario at 1-800-461-2156 or 416-325-8305 to determine if they are eligible for expedited service.”

Jackson said while it appears the death has now been registered, she is still waiting for the death certificate to be mailed out.

“I recently found out about the postal strike and then I was like, I’m having a breakdown because I can’t do anything here,” she said.

Jackson said she has asked the Canadian lawyer to courier the death certificate to England to speed up the process amid delays caused a postal strike in Canada.

The ministry said ServiceOntario has implemented a plan to “minimize the impact of the postal labour disruption” on customers.

“Customers can continue to use premium service which will prioritize their application and includes courier service for the most critical types of documents, such as birth, death or marriage certificates and certified copies, if the birth, death, or marriage is registered, and/or the application is submitted with proof of urgency for expedited services,” the spokesperson said.

Jackson said she empathizes with others who are in a similar position.

“You’ve got so many people everywhere that must be waiting for these certificates, going insane because they can’t do anything without them,” she said.

“It’s holding up their lives, right?”