Demetre Vasilounis, Author at All About Estates

Demetre Vasilounis

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Demetre Vasilounis is an associate in the Trusts, Wills, Estates and Charities group at Fasken. He has a broad estates and trusts practice with an emphasis on the evolving relationship between estates law and technology. Demetre has developed and implemented cohesive estate plans for clients involving a wide range of different family and corporate structures. He has also advised on probate planning, disability planning, charitable gifting, asset protection strategies, cross-border estates and tax issues, personal privacy, and family law matters. Demetre enjoys learning and writing about unique, unexplored issues in estates law, particularly with respect to digital assets, privacy, artificial intelligence and intellectual property.

Assessing Drake’s Estate Planning Needs

By Demetre Vasilounis • September 24, 2021 • 2 Comments

As a Toronto native, I couldn’t help but listen to rapper Drake’s highly-anticipated new album Certified Lover Boy, which he released just a few weeks ago. In fact, it has been enjoying record-breaking streaming numbers from music fans around the world, amassing a staggering 153 million global Spotify streams in…

More Tech Companies Are Implementing Digital Legacy Planning

By Demetre Vasilounis • July 30, 2021 • 2 Comments

When it comes to estate planning for one’s digital assets, it is now no secret that, depending on the organization(s) involved, options can be limited. This is particularly the case for online accounts. A few years ago, Fasken published a bulletin titled “Estate Planning and Online Accounts”. This bulletin examined…

Today’s Executor is a Digital Executor

By Demetre Vasilounis • June 4, 2021 • 0 Comments

Today’s Executor is a Digital Executor The estates and trusts world has taken notice of the importance of digital assets—there is no question about that. Now that we know that an individual’s digital assets are something that advisors and clients alike need to consider for every estate planning matter, the…

New Privacy Legislation Aims to Address Digital Assets in Estate Administration

By Demetre Vasilounis • March 26, 2021 • 0 Comments

Practitioners and clients alike have come to realize that there can be numerous legal challenges to administering a testator’s digital assets, including, among them, ambiguous or restrictive privacy legislation. For most Canadian provinces,[1] the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) does not appear to grant executors, trustees, or…

Can You Preserve Your Tattoos After Your Death?

By Demetre Vasilounis • January 22, 2021 • 2 Comments

Introduction Last year, I wrote a blog post about estate planning for tattoo artists, which focused primarily on the intellectual property rights of tattoo artists in their tattoo designs and the ways in which such rights conflict with the rights of the people who actually bear such designs on their…

Electronic Wills in Ontario: Growing Interest, Growing Need, or Growing Concern?

By Demetre Vasilounis • November 13, 2020 • 0 Comments

A few months ago, I was sent this article in the Globe and Mail.[1] The article explores the notion of introducing legislation to legalize electronic wills in Ontario. Although some of us here in the estates and trusts world have experience deducing what the positives and negatives of electronic wills…

Aging, Memory, Existentialism and Xenoblade Chronicles 2

By Demetre Vasilounis • September 11, 2020 • 2 Comments

“If the Architect does indeed exist, I wish I could ask him… who am I, truly? Whence did I come? Whither am I headed?” – Jin, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 While I usually tend to write about interesting hypothetical legal issues with respect to estates, trusts and family law, I wanted…

Estate Planning for Tattoo Artists

By Demetre Vasilounis • August 7, 2020 • 3 Comments

It’s critical for anyone planning an estate, whether their own or someone else’s, to do a comprehensive analysis of anything that could be considered property of that estate upon the testator’s death. After all, section 2 of Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act states that a “person may by will devise,…

A Presumptive Peril: The Law of Beneficiary Designations is Now in Flux

By Demetre Vasilounis • July 17, 2020 • 10 Comments

Calmusky v. Calmusky, 2020 ONSC 1506, is a 2020 decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that is ruffling some feathers among banks, financial advisors and estate planning lawyers in Ontario. In this case, the court applied the principles surrounding the presumption of resulting trust, established by the Supreme Court…

How to Provide for Your Island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons After Your Death: Part III

By Demetre Vasilounis • July 10, 2020 • 0 Comments

This is a three-part blog series that seeks to explore the manner in which one can conduct estate planning with respect to their copy of the popular 2020 Nintendo Switch video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Part I discussed the importance of this topic and described the applicability of a…