One of the first steps following the death of a loved one is to go through their paperwork. You never know what you will find – handwritten wills, love letters, bank statements, or written agreements confirming that the deceased is owed money. If the estate is owed funds, it is…
With mobility on the rise, it is expected that a person leaving Canada will have to visit the rules on tax-free savings accounts (TFSA) and Canadian tax residency. Executors may have to consider the TFSA rules if a deceased’s will calls for the transfer of a TFSA account to a…
Written by Jessica Rochman Fowler The tech industry is no stranger to age bias in employment practices. Several articles have been written over the past few years about ageist assumptions that permeate the tech world, including that older people can’t keep up with improving technology, or that older employees should…
Last week I was fortunate to be able to attend STEP Canada’s 20th National Conference, along with 780 other trust and estate practitioners. This was my third consecutive year attending the Conference, and yet again, it did not disappoint. Individuals from not only across Canada but also around the world…
It is imperative to make a will. Too often lawyers come across files where an individual dies without a will (i.e. “intestate”), leaving behind a messy estate to be wrapped up and distributed. People often wonder who inherits an intestate person’s estate. When a person dies intestate in Ontario, the…
We have blogged about income splitting arrangements available to individuals who wish to loan funds to his/her lower income spouse or adult child, or in the case of minor children, a discretionary family trust. Such loans would be used to invest in income producing properties such marketable securities, mutual funds,…
Over the last few weeks I had the pleasure of attending two hospital events. One was a fundraiser for the new Women’s (College) Hospital and the other was a recognition lunch by Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation; two world class hospitals that we are lucky to have located in Toronto. Both…
As a “millennial” (an imprecise demographic term which describes those born between 1980 and somewhere in the late 1990s), I often hear about the ways in which my generation is doing things differently (often worse) than those generations before us: we live on our smartphones[1], we can’t seem to get…