Costs in British Columbia Estate Litigation: Why “Winning” Doesn’t Always Mean Getting Paid Back
Most people assume that if you win, the other side pays your legal bills. If you lose, you pay theirs. Costs are not just about who “won.”
The starting point: costs follow the event
In BC Supreme Court litigation, the general rule under Rule 14-1(9) of the Supreme Court Civil Rules is simple: the successful party is entitled to costs unless the court orders otherwise.
“Success” is not always clean. A party might win on some issues and lose on others. Or the court may find that neither side truly “won” in a meaningful sense of the word. Even when a party is successful, what they receive in costs is not what they actually spent.
Costs in BC are not designed to make anyone whole. They are based on a tariff system that assigns fixed values to steps in litigation (such as pleadings, discoveries, applications, trial days) and then converts those steps into a monetary award.
A successful party typically recovers only a fraction of their actual legal fees, often somewhere in the range of 30–40%, plus reasonable disbursements.
So even a “win” in court can still feel like a financial loss once the dust settles.
Why estate litigation is different: costs often come from the estate
The modern approach in British Columbia recognizes that disputes over wills, capacity, and beneficiary rights are often not about wrongdoing. They arise because the deceased left behind uncertainty, competing interpretations, or family tension that the law is asked to resolve.
For that reason, courts frequently order that costs in estate litigation be paid from the estate itself, rather than by one party personally.
This approach reflects a practical reality: when beneficiaries are litigating, they are often not “opponents” in the traditional sense. They are people with a legitimate interest in the same estate, asking the court to determine how it should be distributed. In those circumstances, it can be unfair to punish one side financially for bringing forward a reasonable claim or defense.
Courts will not automatically protect parties with an estate-funded costs order. The direction of costs still depends heavily on conduct.
If a party has acted unreasonably, taken frivolous positions, or unnecessarily increased the length or expense of the litigation, the court can and will depart from the usual estate-paid approach. In those cases, personal costs consequences may follow.
The estate should not be depleted by unnecessary conflict, but it also should not be used to punish parties who were simply trying to resolve genuine uncertainty.
Few cases are absolute wins or losses. Courts increasingly recognize that litigation often produces mixed outcomes, where each side has some degree of success.
In those situations, costs may be:
- split between parties,
- tied to specific issues, or
- in some cases, ordered payable from the estate to avoid further dispute.
In estate litigation especially, courts tend to focus less on technical victory and more on whether the litigation helped clarify the administration of the estate or unnecessarily prolonged conflict.