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Celebrating

our 10th year
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Toronto Ontario Estate Law Blog

Multiple Taxation on Death: The Taxpayer’s Nightmare

With increasing globalization of people and their assets, a growing and often hidden threat is multiple taxation on death. Different countries tax in different ways on death, and when those laws collide, the same assets can be exposed to double and even triple tax or more. Some countries tax the

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Fun in the Sun, Until the Probate Court Comes?

While this winter in Toronto has been blessedly mild, colder weather makes many of us wonder why we live in a cold climate, or at least envy those who have vacation homes in warmer climates. While a vacation home in Florida or Arizona or other southern destinations may be a

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The Family Wealth Conversation – Too Little, Too Late?

One of the issues of increasing concern to parents is having that family wealth conversation. With increasing affluence, the present post-war baby boom generation is confronting more so than their parents had to, the best way to approach talking with their children about financial matters, including their eventual inheritance. While

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No Estate Planner is an Island

A well drafted will is not worth the (stack of) paper it is written on if it fails to achieve the client’s objectives. Those objectives are often defeated where an estate plan is not properly designed, implemented, or maintained. Under the traditional approach to estate planning, the lawyer typically designs

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Special Needs Planning: Knowledge is Power

As parents, we worry about our children: a truism that becomes even more true, and often extends to siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, when a child has special needs. We worry about what will happen to the special-needs individual, how they will care for themself and be cared for, and

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Start the New Year off on the Right Foot

As of today, according to the Gregorian calendar, we are just over one month away from ringing in the New Year. If you are already contemplating your New Year’s resolution, we thought we would help out in this blog post by providing you with a shortlist of “thinking points” for

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Owning a Home Jointly with a Child – More Trouble than it’s Worth?

In Ontario, on an application for a Certificate of Appointment, the applicant must pay Ontario Estate Administration Tax (also known as “probate tax”). Probate tax is levied at an approximate rate of 1.5% on the gross value of the estate. Assets passing outside of an estate, such as jointly-owned assets,

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Ethos for an Aging Society

It is quite remarkable to think that notwithstanding our increasingly aging demographic,1 the recognition of the rights of older persons as a distinct group has been largely absent in the field of human rights. Only recently the rights of older persons as a distinct group have begun to emerge and

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For Better or For Worse… Especially If You Move

There are many things that we think about and plan for when we move–furniture, movers, schools, utilities… I could go on and on. There are even more things that we plan for when we move to another jurisdiction-language, taxes, visas, driving laws… and so it goes. But one thing you

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