All About Estates

Category: Capacity Law

Total 141 Posts

Navigating Mental Capacity and Guardianship in Ontario’s Estates Law: Lessons from Francois v. Francois, 2025 ONSC 589

By: Maddi Thomas, associate and Sukhman Sangha, articling student Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP   Mental capacity continues to be a growing area of focus in estates law. Capacity, defined under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 (“SDA”) as the ability to understand and appreciate decision consequences, is assessed through medical and…

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RESP, Incapacity and Power of Attorney

This article is written by Nicole Ewing, Principal, Wealth Planning Office, TD Wealth Parents and grandparents often help fund a child’s education using Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs). These are tax-efficient vehicles that allow contributions, grants, bonds, and income to be invested in a tax-deferred environment to grow for eventual…

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Lam v Law Estate: Gender bias permits variation of discriminatory will

Today’s blog post was written by Latoya Brown, an Associate at Fasken LLP. The discussion of discriminatory wills continues with a new case out of the British Columbia Supreme Court. In Lam v Law Estate, 2024 BCSC 156, the court varied a testatrix’s will on the reasoning that the testatrix’s…

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Videos and Wills: Helpful or Harmful?

Pictured: A screen grab from the music video for “Only Acting” by Kero Kero Bonito. It’s one of my favourite songs. It’s not quite about video wills, but it does show off some of the challenges of recording oneself. What are Video Wills? Some practitioners have floated the idea of…

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BILL C-62 – Delays the inclusion of mental illness from MAID eligibility

Everyone knows the tragic Shakespeare tale of how Juliet awakens from her “death” to discover that her love Romeo had taken his life, believing that Juliet had really died.  Juliet, in her own state of sorrow, stabs herself with a dagger and is joined forever with her love Romeo. This…

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