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Celebrating

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Category: Blog

Legal vs. Beneficial Ownership: What it Means for Your Estate Planning

The amount of careful analysis and due diligence that good individualized estate planning requires cannot be overstated. Importantly, this process involves determining all the assets a testator has an interest in, how such interest is held, and finally how they would like to dispose of or pass on such interest(s)

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The GRE: What It Is, Why Use It, and How To Keep It

In the world of trusts and estates law, the acronym “GRE” is a frequent visitor, and while its descriptive meaning, Graduated Rate Estate (“GRE”), may be well known, its impact perhaps less so. A testamentary trust is a trust created as a result of a person’s death. An estate is

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Substantial Compliance: The Court’s Curative Power has Limits

In June 2025, my colleague, Michael G. von Keitz, wrote a blog titled ‘1,270 Days Later: The Sequel to Substantial Compliance in Ontario’. His blog reviewed a trio of cases (Salmon v Rombough, 2024 ONSC 1186, O’Neill Estate, 2024 ONSC 2228, and Urback v Canadian Cancer Society et al., 2025

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Why Do We Procrastinate When It Comes to Estate Planning?

Procrastination is the act of delaying or putting off tasks. It’s not about laziness or indolence, but is caused by fear or anxiety or as a way to cope with unpleasant emotions. Wealthy, successful people can be the biggest procrastinators. In fact, among respondents with a doctorate or master’s degree,

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1,270 Days Later: The Sequel to Substantial Compliance in Ontario

In November of 2023, I wrote about Ontario’s topical “validating” provision – section 21.1 of the Succession Law Reform Act (SLRA) – and whether it might risk “emboldening those seeking self-help remedies.” More than a year later, the case law has continued to evolve on this provision, and I feel

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