BC Court of Appeal confirms beneficiaries own the trustee's file — the Yurkiw Estate decisions, and why the later ones got almost no attention

I'm posting this because my family lived through it and I think the public record is genuinely useful for anyone dealing with an estate.

My father-in-law died in 2020. A professional trust company was appointed administrator. My husband and his sister are the only two beneficiaries.

In 2024, the administrator applied to pass its accounts. My husband asked for the administrator's complete file so he could actually assess what he was being asked to approve. The associate judge refused and passed the accounts summarily (2024 BCSC 1160). The administrator then posted that judgment publicly on LinkedIn, thanking her counsel — a post that drew a lot of applause from estate professionals.

Here's what happened after, and what I think is actually useful to know:

2024 BCSC 2283 — On appeal, Justice Morley allowed the appeal on document production: "A beneficiary has a right to the documents that are created by the administrator in the administration of the estate, with only limited exceptions" (§15). He held it was an error to make the beneficiary prove the relevance of documents he'd never been allowed to see.

2025 BCSC 1026 — The file still wasn't produced properly. The judge found: "The trustee has failed to comply with my November Order and this application has, unfortunately, been necessary to get them to do so" (§16). He ordered costs against the administrator personally, not from the estate, because its interests in resisting disclosure "were personal... as opposed to interests of the trust" (§24). He also defined what "the entire file" means: all physical and electronic records containing information about the trust, subject to limited exceptions.

2026 BCCA 149 — The administrator appealed that to the Court of Appeal and lost. The Court held the beneficiaries are the equitable owners of the estate and noted: "Heritage was in a position to know what it could and could not produce, and at what cost, and said nothing. Benjamin was on the outside looking in" (§46). It also observed the dispute "has delayed distribution of the estate... and no doubt has eroded the funds available for distribution" (§3).

Being fair about the rest of the record: my husband's separate appeal of the passing of accounts was dismissed in 2026 BCSC 829. The court found no evidence of loss on the property sale and upheld the accounts. I'm including that because a record only means something if you post all of it.

The matter isn't over — a further passing of accounts for a new period, and outstanding costs, are still before the court.

All six decisions on CanLII:
2024 BCSC 1160 — canlii.ca/t/k5k0j
2024 BCSC 2283 — canlii.ca/t/k8d29
2025 BCSC 1026 — canlii.ca/t/kcghh
2025 BCSC 1948 — canlii.ca/t/kfqqh
2026 BCSC 829 — canlii.ca/t/kkr59
2026 BCCA 149 — canlii.ca/t/kkd54

I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. But if you're a beneficiary being asked to approve accounts without seeing the file, the case law is clearer than a lot of people realise.