our 10th year
blog anniversary
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
Many of you may have read about the recent Murdoch family trust dispute, the elements of which are a real-life drama even more interesting than an episode of the Succession series, thought to be based on the Murdoch family’s trials and tribulations. The court decision in this case provides lessons to
When a loved one passes away, one of the first legal steps in managing their estate can be the need for probate—the court process that confirms the validity of a will and grants authority to the executor to administer the estate. When an estate does not have cross-border or multijurisdictional
If you have assets, prospective beneficiaries, or other connections to foreign countries, you have cross-border or multijurisdictional considerations in your estate planning or administration. Even closer to home, you may encounter the operation of conflicting legal regimes. For this reason, for some purposes, it can be helpful to conceptualize the
There are many reasons and many ways to give. Charitable giving is a very personal choice—including which charity to benefit, the purpose and objective of the gift, the source of the gift, the timing of the gift, and even the vehicle to carry out the gift. Every philanthropist is unique
What does the law say about your autonomy to make gifts, whether during your lifetime or on death under your will? When will the law intervene, and when will it step aside? This issue is of increasing importance in our aging society where many of us will live well into
Wills can take many forms, for example, Cecil George Harris’s historic will, etched onto a panel of farm machinery under which he was trapped and later succumbed to injury, or the Court of Appeal for Ontario’s 2022 finding that a suicide note was a valid will. While the technical legal
Just when high-net-worth taxpayers thought that the amount of tax they must pay could not get any higher, the Canadian government brought in new changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax (the “AMT”) regime. Putting aside politics and the arguments for or against the changes to the AMT regime, this blog
In Ontario, as in other jurisdictions, powers of attorney for property are crucial tools for individuals who may become incapable of managing their property and financial affairs. A power of attorney for property grants the power for one or more people (the “attorney(s)”) to act on behalf of the person
All Trustees, whether Estate Trustees or otherwise, have a duty to account to the beneficiaries on whose behalf a trust is being managed. That is to say, those vested with the power to manage property on behalf of others are obligated to provide to the beneficiaries an accounting of their
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