All About Estates

Demetre Vasilounis

Total 23 Posts Website
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.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All: Pokémon Cards and Personalty Clauses

Just under six years ago, I bought a Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) Venusaur Ex Red and Blue Collection Box. I was feeling stressed about studying for my law school exams and, being a massive Pokémon fan, I went for a walk to my local hobby store and decided to…

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Digital Assets: How Advisors are Changing the World

While I enjoy writing about the legal aspects of digital assets in estate planning and administration, I don’t think that I have spent enough time focusing on the work of the wonderful advisors in this space: technology consultants, lawyers and policy analysts among them. The efforts of these advisors have…

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Digital Assets: Spotlighting Client User Considerations (Part II)

Today’s blog post was written in collaboration with Adele Ambrose – Student-at-Law at Fasken. This is the second part in a two-part blog series that explores the specific client considerations for digital assets in estate planning. In Part I, we took a look at the digital assets landscape in Canada…

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Digital Assets: Spotlighting Client User Considerations (Part I)

Today’s blog post was written in collaboration with Adele Ambrose – Student-at-Law at Fasken. It has become clear that the “wait and see” approach to digital assets and digital currency has now shifted to a need for prudent guidance and action by advisors and institutions. According to CoinMarketCap, the total…

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Are Domestic Contracts Becoming More Popular?

When I explain to people whom I’m meeting for the first time that I’m a lawyer and that among my areas of practice I draft domestic contracts, I’m often met with a response to the effect of “You mean, like, a pre-nup?” I can confirm that a “pre-nup” is, in…

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Shingeki no Kyojin: An Anime Unexpectedly About Family, Legacy and Succession

Last week, my colleague Yvonne Mazurak wrote a blog post about a recently-released television show, And Just Like That, discussing the estate planning issues highlighted by the events of the show. So, I thought I would provide a bit of a television recommendation show of my own…although my taste is…

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Software Applications as Aids to the Estates Advisor

Software Applications as Aids to the Estates Advisor For all of us advisors, there are likely certain types of software applications that we use for our day-to-day tasks: perhaps its Microsoft Outlook for sending emails, or a timekeeping software for recording dockets. And although these programs are leaps and bounds…

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Assessing Drake’s Estate Planning Needs

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…

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More Tech Companies Are Implementing Digital Legacy Planning

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…

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Today’s Executor is a Digital Executor

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…

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