All About Estates

Tag: Estate Litigation

Total 98 Posts

To Validate or Not to Validate: That is the Question

Today’s blog has been written by David C. Rosenbaum, Partner, at Fasken LLP Subsection 21.1(1) of the Succession Law Reform Act (SLRA) permits the Superior Court of Justice to validate a document or will that was not properly executed or made under the Act, if the deceased died after January…

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Trusteeship Part 2: Avoiding Pitfalls—Best Practices for Estate Trustees

Today’s blog has been written by Latoya Brown, Associate, at Fasken LLP In Part 1 of this series, we explored the importance of selecting the right trustee, using Jones v. Jones[1] to highlight what can go wrong when a trustee lacks a clear understanding of their fiduciary obligations. In this…

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Modern Families: References to Children and Issue in Wills

  Today’s blog was written by Karen La Caprara, Counsel, at Fasken LLP. Like many modern families, the fictional Pritchett family in the series “Modern Family” has a variety of personalities, family dynamics and relationships, traditional and modern viewpoints. The many possible iterations and permutations of what makes a family…

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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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Charities have Fiduciary Duties as Estate Beneficiaries

I recently spoke to an estate lawyer who told me she would never recommend certain charities to clients. Why?  Because of the way these charities treated estate trustees. Some charities are unduly litigious, grind on fees, and are obstreperous about releases. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this comment…

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Production motions: the bar is higher than you think

A recently released decision, Giann v Giannopoulos, 2023 ONSC 5412, provides clarity on a question that frequently arises in estate litigation: what information is a party entitled to from the deceased’s personal records and documents? This case, heard by Justice Myers of the estate list in mid-September this year was…

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