How much compensation should be awarded to an estate trustee who has breached her duty of honesty and utmost good faith, was prepared to simply cut a cheque to pay out a claim against the estate without any investigation into its merits, and was prepared to use the threat of destroying the testator’s beloved pets as a means to try to extract benefits for her friends and herself?
When a solicitor is advising on estate administration, who does the solicitor and client privilege belong to?
Can parties who are on the same side protect privileged communications which are shared among their respective lawyers?
The breakdown of a marriage or common law relationship can raise a host of complex legal issues both for the living and the dead. One issue that seems to crop up again and again is life insurance proceeds and who should benefit.
The cy-près doctrine sounds formidable. However, it is an invaluable tool to ensure that the charitable intent of a testator is respected despite the changing sands of time.
The progress of elder law in Canada remains slow in face of a certain amount of healthy scepticism. Is elder law a ‘real’ area of law or just a new way to market legal services to older adults and their families?
The fine art of proportionality applied or hindsight run amuck? You decide.
Not a happy day for respondent beneficiaries where a rectification application they opposed was granted and the court then ordered that they pay the costs of the applicant personally. Estate litigation is no cake walk.
Where the language of the Will is unequivocal and approved by the testator, a court will refuse to rectify a will to match the testator’s true intentions.
Over the last two weeks, a number of blogs have addressed the issue of choosing an executor. Here is a litigator’s perspective (for better or worse).
