{"id":939,"date":"2019-08-28T22:45:22","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T02:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=939"},"modified":"2020-04-28T21:14:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T01:14:04","slug":"ontario-theres-no-limitation-period-for-an-application-for-a-declaration-of-a-codicils-validity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=939","title":{"rendered":"Ontario: there&#8217;s no limitation period for an application for a declaration of a codicil&#8217;s validity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/hzs41\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Piekut v. Romoli<\/em><\/a>, the applicant sought a declaration as to whether codicils were valid. The respondent moved to dismiss the application as statute-barred. The court denied the motion on the basis that no limitation period applied pursuant to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ontario.ca\/laws\/statute\/02l24#BK18\" target=\"_blank\">s. 16(1)(a)<\/a>, which prescribes no limitation period for a proceeding for a declaration if no consequential relief is sought.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The applicant was not seeking consequential relief:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"MainParagraph\">[<a class=\"paragAnchor\" name=\"par50\"><\/a>50]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I find that Helen\u2019s question with respect to the validity of the codicils is restricted to declaratory relief. She is not seeking consequential relief. She is not asking the court to determine the ultimate beneficiary of Dundas St. properties or to vest the properties in any particular beneficiary or beneficiaries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is the correct outcome by the wrong reasoning.\u00a0 No limitation period applied to the proceeding because it didn&#8217;t pursue a &#8220;claim&#8221;.\u00a0 The Limitations Act applies to &#8220;claims&#8221; pursued in court proceeding (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ontario.ca\/laws\/statute\/02l24#BK2\" target=\"_blank\">s. 2<\/a>).\u00a0 If there&#8217;s no &#8220;claim&#8221;, there&#8217;s no limitation period.\u00a0 &#8220;Claims&#8221;\u00a0derive from causes of action.\u00a0 If there&#8217;s no cause of action, there&#8217;s no &#8220;claim&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no cause of action asserted in an application for a declaration regarding the validity of a codicil (or a will).\u00a0 Accordingly, the applicants were not pursuing a &#8220;claim&#8221; in a court proceeding, and no limitation period applied to it.<\/p>\n<p>Update! <a href=\"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1041\" target=\"_blank\">The Court of Appeal upheld this decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; In Piekut v. Romoli, the applicant sought a declaration as to whether codicils were valid. The respondent moved to dismiss the application as statute-barred. The court denied the motion on the basis that no limitation period applied pursuant to s. 16(1)(a), which prescribes no limitation period for a proceeding for a declaration if no &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=939\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ontario: there&#8217;s no limitation period for an application for a declaration of a codicil&#8217;s validity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[552,8,6,21,115,272,7],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-codicils","tag-declarations","tag-estates","tag-ontario-act-s-161a","tag-ontario-act-s-21a","tag-will-challenges","tag-wills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1044,"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}