Your Debts When You Die: What Survives and What Is Extinguished

Three weeks after the funeral, the phone rings. A collection agency, polite but insistent, about a credit card balance. The card was in her husband's name, his alone. She never signed anything on that account.

The question she asks next is exactly the right one, and almost nobody asks it while they are alive: is this debt mine now?

In Québec, the answer comes down to one reassuring rule and a few exceptions that are expensive. What tips a family to one side or the other is almost never the size of the debt: it is an administrative step families are tempted to skip.

The basic rule: the estate pays

Debts do not disappear at death, and they do not automatically pass to family members either. They stay attached to the patrimony of the person who died — their estate — and it is the estate that settles them before anyone inherits.

Article 625 of the Civil Code of Québec sets out the principle and its limit in the same sentence. The heirs are seized of the deceased's patrimony, but "they are not, except in the cases provided for in this Book, liable for the obligations of the deceased beyond the value of the property they receive."

In other words: if the estate owes more than it is worth, you risk receiving nothing — not paying the difference out of your own pocket.

Éducaloi sums up the choice facing each successor: "If you accept the succession, you must pay the deceased person's debts. If you refuse it, you do not have to pay any debts, but you will not receive any property as an inheritance."

The organization then adds the decisive qualification, the one the rest of this article spells out: "The law does, however, provide a protection mechanism if you follow the rules for liquidating the succession." The protection in article 625 is not a vested right. It is something given in exchange.

You can accept an estate without having signed anything

Éducaloi describes three ways of accepting: by declaring it, by performing an act of acceptance, or simply by letting time pass.

The deadline matters. You generally have six months from the death to accept or refuse; after that, the law considers that you have accepted. If the inventory of the property is not finished within those six months, the period can be extended by 60 days, and the court can extend it further on application.

Your actions matter too. Using the deceased's property before the liquidation is finished — taking the car, for example — can amount to automatic acceptance.

Some acts, fortunately, do not count. Éducaloi lists those that do not result in automatic acceptance: taking steps to protect the property, such as renewing the fire insurance on the house; distributing clothing, personal papers, decorations, diplomas and family mementoes to loved ones; paying the funeral expenses; storing elsewhere property that is costly to keep.

That last list is worth reading twice. Paying for the funeral commits you to nothing. Emptying the house does.

The inventory: the door through which the protection disappears

Here is the costliest point in this whole article, and it comes down to a document many families find burdensome, expensive and pointless when the estate looks simple.

Article 799 of the Civil Code is blunt: the liquidator — Québec's term for what the rest of Canada calls an executor — may be exempted from making an inventory only if all the heirs and successors consent to it, and "the heirs, and the successors who thereby become heirs, are then liable for the debts of the succession beyond the value of the property they receive."

Waiving the inventory therefore means waiving the ceiling in article 625. The entire protection falls away at once, by consent.

Article 800 covers the neighbouring case: heirs who, knowing that the liquidator refuses or neglects to make an inventory, themselves neglect for 60 days following the expiry of the six-month period to make the inventory or apply to the court, are also liable beyond the value of the property received.

When the inventory is done, the mechanism stays protective. Article 823 holds an heir liable only "up to the value of the property he receives" for debts left unpaid by the liquidator; where there are several heirs, each is liable only in proportion to their share.

One release valve remains. Article 835 allows an heir in good faith to ask the court to reduce their obligation or limit it to the value of the property received, in particular if a creditor comes forward whose existence they could not have known about. That is a court remedy, not a box to tick: the inventory is better.

Our guide to the liquidator's role spells out this step, and the one on the time and costs of settling an estate explains why it takes as long as it does.

What is genuinely extinguished at death

Three situations are worth knowing, because they run against intuition.

Suretyship. If the person who died had stood surety for someone else — a child's loan, a friend's commercial lease — article 2361 of the Civil Code is categorical: "The death of the surety terminates the suretyship, notwithstanding any stipulation to the contrary." A clause in the contract changes nothing. What becomes of an obligation that already arose before the death is another question, and it is one for a notary or a lawyer.

The Québec student loan. The Act respecting financial assistance for education expenses provides in section 27 that "on the death of a borrower, the Minister shall repay to the financial institution the balance of the guaranteed loan and the interest due." The bank is therefore paid. But section 29 adds that the Minister is subrogated by operation of law in the rights of the financial institution — the Minister becomes the creditor — and that this subrogation "does not operate where the death of the borrower occurs during the period of full exemption." The debt does not evaporate in every case, then: it changes creditor, except within the window the Act targets. And this concerns the loan guaranteed by the Québec program, not a student line of credit taken out at a bank.

Support payments. The personal obligation to pay support is extinguished with the person, but the Civil Code opens a door in the other direction. Article 684 allows any creditor of support to claim from the estate, within six months of the death, a financial contribution as support — even if they are an heir, even if the right had never been exercised before. Article 688 caps the amount: for a former spouse, the equivalent of 12 months of support; for another creditor of support, six months; and never more than 10% of the value of the estate. This is a debt that did not exist the day before the death and appears the day after.

What survives, and the order in which it is paid

The rest survives: credit card balances, personal loans, lines of credit, current accounts, taxes. Our guide on taxes at death explains why the final income tax return is often the biggest bill of the liquidation. For the mortgage balance, everything depends on what was taken out at the time: our comparison of mortgage loan insurance and individual life insurance sets out the two approaches.

Éducaloi also flags the debts you will not find by going through the paperwork: the division of the family patrimony if the person was married, a support claim made after the death, a private loan made by a family member with nothing in writing.

Where the estate is solvent, the Government of Québec describes what the liquidator settles: the current electricity, telephone and heating accounts, the funeral expenses, the claims resulting from the division of the family patrimony and the liquidation of the matrimonial or civil union regime, the compensatory allowance to the surviving spouse where applicable, then the other debts.

Where it is not solvent, the procedure gets stricter. The liquidator may not pay any debt or any legacy by particular title before drawing up a complete statement of the debts, giving notice to the interested parties and having a proposal for payment homologated by the court, which must follow a mandatory order.

Rank	Creditors paid, according to the Government of Québec
1	Prior creditors (legal costs, movable property, tax legislation, property taxes) or hypothecary creditors, according to their rank
2	The other creditors
3	The creditors of support
4	The legatees by particular title

If it becomes impossible to repay the ordinary or support creditors in full, payments are made in proportion to the amount of each claim.

Where life insurance changes the arithmetic

Life insurance money does not travel this route, and that is exactly what makes it useful here.

Article 2455 of the Civil Code is short: "The sum insured payable to a beneficiary does not form part of the succession of the insured." The money goes to the named beneficiary, without passing through the inventory, without waiting for the proposal for payment, without joining the queue of creditors.

Article 2457 adds a protection upstream: where the designated beneficiary is the spouse, the spouse in a civil union, the descendant or the ascendant of the policyholder, "the rights conferred by the contract are exempt from seizure until the beneficiary receives the sum insured."

The designation can, however, cancel all of that. Article 2456 provides that insurance payable "to the succession or to the assigns, heirs, liquidators or other legal representatives of a person" does, on the contrary, form part of that person's estate. Writing "my heirs" instead of a name therefore brings the money into the patrimony where the debts live — which is sometimes deliberate, when you want the money to pay the tax bill, but rarely so when you thought you were protecting someone. Our guide on beneficiary designation goes through these articles one by one.

Frequently asked questions

Can the bank claim a debt in the deceased's name alone from the surviving spouse?

A debt contracted by one person remains a debt of their estate. The situation changes if the spouse co-signed, guaranteed the credit or held a joint account: she is then a co-debtor in her own right, independently of the death. Faced with a claim, the first thing to check is therefore who signed what.

Should you refuse an estate that looks indebted?

Not necessarily, and above all not in a hurry. Refusing shelters you from the debts, but it also deprives you of any inheritance. As Éducaloi points out, it is the liquidator who verifies the debts and the assets: you can ask them for the information before deciding. A notary will help you decide within the time limit.

Is life insurance used to pay debts?

It can be, but it does not have to be. When a beneficiary is named, the money belongs to them and they do what they want with it, including settling accounts. When the insurance is payable to the succession within the meaning of article 2456, it enters the patrimony and becomes available to the creditors.

Are funeral expenses part of the debts?

Yes, and they are among the first expenses the liquidator settles in a solvent estate. Paying them does not amount to acceptance. Our guides on funeral costs and on the QPP death benefit set out the gap to be funded.

Does this text replace advice from a professional?

No. We explain published general rules; we give neither legal advice nor insurance advice. As soon as an estate's solvency is uncertain, consult a notary.

Sources

• Civil Code of Québec, articles 625, 684, 688, 799, 800, 823, 835, 2361, 2455, 2456 and 2457, consolidated text, LégisQuébec: https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fr/document/lc/CCQ-1991 (accessed August 11, 2026)
• Act respecting financial assistance for education expenses, CQLR chapter A-13.3, sections 27 and 29: https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fr/document/lc/A-13.3 (accessed August 11, 2026)
• Éducaloi, "Hériter d'une succession insolvable : quelles conséquences?": https://educaloi.qc.ca/capsules/heriter-succession-insolvable/ (accessed August 11, 2026)
• Government of Québec, "Paiement des dettes d'une succession": https://www.quebec.ca/justice-et-etat-civil/testament-succession/succession/reglement-succession/paiement-dettes (accessed August 11, 2026)

This text presents general information about Québec law. It is neither legal advice nor insurance advice. For your own situation, consult a notary, a lawyer or a financial security advisor.