our 10th year
blog anniversary
Clients like to say that they don’t have any personal effects of value. While they likely mean monetary value, they are overlooking the sentimental value these items may have. Fights over estates are not always about the dollars and cents. It is not uncommon to see fights among beneficiaries that
Heading into a new year is always a great time to think about what you need to accomplish over the next 12 months. Preparing or updating your estate plan is usually high on that list. But in some cases, you may not be as concerned with your estate plan as
I recently had the pleasure to participate in a webinar for the Canadian Legal Innovation Forum on contemporary drivers, trends and disruptive forces in estates practice and how estate lawyers are evolving their practices to meet them. One of the topics addressed in our panel discussion was generational and societal
It is trite, but perhaps worth repeating that for many people, one of their primary estate planning goals is to take care of their spouse after their death. This is particularly the case if most of the couple’s assets are held by one spouse or where the spouses are in
Jointly held assets are a popular estate planning tool because of how simple they appear. Adding a child on title to the house seems like a quick way to avoid paying probate taxes, or adding them as a joint owner on a bank account could be a convenient way to
It is a well-established principle from the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2007 decision, Pecore v Pecore, that there is a presumption of a resulting trust where a gratuitous transfer of property is found. The primary example is when an asset is put into joint names by a parent with an
When building a life together, one of the more important decisions for married spouses or common-law partners is how to deal with their respective assets and whether or not some or most should be combined. Holding assets jointly with your spouse or partner, particularly in less complex estates, is a
There have been a lot of great songs written about change. Like a broken heart, it’s a universal theme, and an essential part of our human experience. One of my favourites is “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. (Fun fact – this was the first music video to
On an intestacy (when a person dies without a will), each Canadian province and territory provides for a mandatory scheme to distribute a deceased person’s property, which is typically between their surviving spouse and children, if any, and alternately to other relatives. Some provinces and territories provide a spouse with
This past summer, history was made at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when Canadian soccer player, Quinn, became the first openly transgendered and non-binary athlete to not only compete at the Olympics, but to also win an Olympic medal (which happened to be gold, by the way!). Quinn’s journey to the