For years, “predatory marriages” presented a troubling problem for Ontario estates and elder-law practitioners.
An older adult might enter into a new marriage late in life, sometimes quickly and without the knowledge of family members, and potentially with someone upon whom they had become increasingly dependent.
Under the former section 16 of Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act, RSO 1990, c S. 26 (“SLRA”), marriage generally revoked an existing will. This created a particular vulnerability: a person could possess sufficient capacity to marry—traditionally regarded as a relatively low threshold—while potentially lacking the testamentary capacity required to execute a replacement will.
Bill 245 addressed that gap. Effective January 1, 2022, section 16 of the SLRA was repealed and marriage no longer automatically revokes a will.
Four years later, however, an important question remains: did Ontario solve the problem, or only one of its consequences?
The Problem Bill 245 Was Designed to Address
The classic Ontario case illustrating the former difficulty is Banton v Banton, 1998 CanLII 14926.
Mr. Banton was an elderly man living in a care facility who married a considerably younger woman who had worked there. Following the marriage, testamentary documents were executed under which his new wife stood to benefit.
The Court ultimately found that Mr. Banton lacked testamentary capacity in respect of the challenged wills and that undue influence had been established. The marriage itself, however, was valid. Despite lacking testamentary capacity and the ability to manage property, Mr. Banton possessed sufficient capacity to marry.
Under the law then in force, the marriage had revoked his previous will. With the later wills invalid, Mr. Banton died intestate.
Banton exposed the mismatch between the different legal tests for capacity: marriage itself could accomplish something the individual might no longer have testamentary capacity to do intentionally—revoke an existing estate plan.
Bill 245 removed that particular consequence.
Bolotenko v. Wright Estate: The New Law Does Not Rewrite the Past
The 2025 decision in Bolotenko v Wright Estate, 2025 ONSC 1154, clarifies the limits of the reform.
The deceased executed a will in 1999 and married in 2003, when marriage still generally revoked an existing will. Although Bill 245 repealed that rule effective January 1, 2022, and the deceased died several months later, the Court held that the legislative change did not revive his 1999 will.
Justice Leibovich applied the presumption against retroactive legislation. The 2003 marriage had already revoked the will, and the subsequent repeal did not undo that legal consequence.
The practical dividing line is therefore clear: a marriage occurring before January 1, 2022 may still have revoked an earlier will. For marriages occurring after that date, the automatic-revocation concern has disappeared.
That is a significant protection—but not the end of the predatory-marriage problem.
Capacity to Marry Remains a Separate Question
Bill 245 changed succession law. It did not fundamentally change the common-law test for capacity to marry.
In Hunt v Worrod, 2017 ONSC 7397, Mr. Hunt suffered a catastrophic brain injury. Three days after returning home following months of hospitalization and rehabilitation, he was taken away without his sons’ knowledge and married his former partner.
The Court concluded that Mr. Hunt did not possess the capacity to understand the nature of the marriage contract and the duties and responsibilities it created. The marriage was declared void ab initio. Hunt demonstrates that courts can intervene where the evidence establishes incapacity. But not every questionable late-life marriage will meet that threshold.
The case of Tanti v. Tanti, 2021 ONCA 607 provides an important counterpoint. The case concerned the marriage of an elderly man to a younger woman. His son characterized the relationship as a predatory marriage and challenged his father’s capacity to marry. The challenge was unsuccessful.
The courts placed particular significance on contemporaneous evidence of the husband’s functioning and the history of the relationship, rather than later retrospective assessments.
Tanti is an important caution: a significant age difference is not incapacity. An unconventional relationship is not incapacity. Family disapproval is not incapacity. Nor does subsequent cognitive decline establish incapacity on the date of marriage.
Elder law must balance two legitimate concerns: protecting vulnerable individuals from exploitation while preserving the autonomy of older adults to form relationships and marry whom they choose.
What Risk Remains After 2022?
The most obvious risk has been reduced: marriage alone no longer revokes an existing will. But marriage can still have significant legal and financial consequences, including potential rights under succession and family-property legislation.
More importantly, exploitation—where it exists—need not occur through a will.
A vulnerable person may transfer a home into joint ownership, add a spouse to bank or investment accounts, change beneficiary designations, make substantial inter vivos gifts, or grant a new power of attorney. Assets may therefore leave the estate before death.
Preserving the will does not necessarily preserve the estate. That may be the central limitation of the 2022 reform.
So, Has Ontario Solved the Predatory-Marriage Problem?
Bill 245 prospectively eliminated the automatic revocation of a will upon marriage. Bolotenko confirms that the reform does not retrospectively undo revocations caused by marriages entered into under the former legislation.
But the underlying elder-law concerns remain. Capacity to marry remains distinct from testamentary capacity, marriage continues to have legal consequences, and financial exploitation may occur through transactions entirely outside the will.
The post-Bill 245 inquiry therefore needs to be broader than simply asking whether a marriage revoked a will.
Practitioners should consider whether ownership arrangements have changed, beneficiary designations have been altered, substantial gifts have been made, or a new power of attorney has been executed. Where significant financial changes coincide with a new relationship, the critical question is whether the older adult possessed the requisite capacity and acted voluntarily in relation to each particular decision.
Autonomy Still Matters
There is an equally important danger in the opposite direction.
“Predatory marriage” can become an easy label for a relationship that adult children simply do not like. Older adults do not lose the right to companionship because they are wealthy, nor the right to remarry because their children expect an inheritance.
Tanti reminds us that the law must distinguish between vulnerability and incapacity, and between suspicion and evidence. That balance remains at the heart of elder law.
Conclusion
Ontario’s 2022 reforms were an important development in protecting testamentary intention. A marriage entered into today will not, merely by occurring, automatically destroy an existing will.
But declaring the predatory-marriage problem “solved” overstates what the legislation accomplished.
Banton explains why reform was needed. Hunt demonstrates the court’s ability to intervene where marital capacity is absent. Tanti reminds us that suspicion cannot substitute for evidence. Bolotenko establishes the temporal limits of the reform. And Post confirms that the existence and validity of a marriage can still materially affect estate rights.
The landscape has changed, but the underlying challenge remains. For elder-law practitioners, the focus after Bill 245 should be broader: not merely whether a vulnerable person married, but whether their property and financial decision-making changed around the relationship — and whether those changes reflected their capable and voluntary choices.
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