All About Estates

Month: April 2011

Total 21 Posts

Eany Meany Miney Moe, you will be a caregiver before you know…..

“More than 2.3 million Canadian employees currently have caregiving responsibilities. Many experience work-life conflict serious enough to affect their job performance. Population aging guarantees that most of us will combine work and caregiving.”

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Downton Abbey and Britain’s Changing Attitudes towards Succession

The internationally acclaimed television series Downton Abbey introduced many people to Britain’s past inheritance laws. The practice of primogeniture is no longer British law but still remains an inheritance model for Britain’s major landowning families. A new survey conducted for Country Life last week, shows an emerging change in succession attitudes to relax the enforcement of the primogeniture model to transfer land and title. Only 16% of the major landowning families surveyed strictly implement the practice of primogeniture.

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TAX DEDUCTIBILTY OF CHARITABLE DONATIONS THROUGH THE WILL

Does the Will provide for charitable donations or bequests? If properly documented, they may represent tax deductions to the Estate.

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Specificity Matters: Defining “Spouses” for Estate Planning Purposes

When making testamentary or inter vivos gifts, parents sometimes want to ensure that provision is made for the spouses of their children, whether it is by including such individuals as potential beneficiaries of trusts or as recipients of outright gifts.

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For Richer or Poorer in Sickness and In Health….Who Will Be the Caregiver?

There is a tremendous responsibility in caregiving and it can also bring reward and satisfaction. While there is a sense for many, that ‘no one can do it better’ this journey can also be isolating.

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Is it really a gift by Will?

If a gift is not mentioned in the will, it is not a gift by will.

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Is it really a Gift by Will?

Recently a charity contacted me about a long-time supporter who had just died. The late donor intended to make a bequest of valuable artwork, but the gift was not mentioned in her will. The family and executor were willing to donate the art on the condition that the charity provides…

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