Much has been written in this blog space and many others on this topic. Several times a year (in some years more often than others), we are asked in our practice about to advise on succession or estate planning issues for the family cottage. I was recently alerted to a…
Tag: estate & trust
Total 136 Posts
A lot has been written about how should choose an executor, and some of it in this blog place. A couple of years ago, fellow boggler Emily Hubling wrote eloquently about the risk and rewards of appointing a professional advisor as executor. I would like to revisit some of the…
As someone who has been around the life insurance industry in a professional and personal capacity for several decades, I am always curious about what motivates people to buy or not buy life insurance. I understand that few people spend time thinking about the consequences of low-probability events and are…
In this space, sometime ago, a fellow blogger wrote about how survivor payments made out of a deceased’s tax free savings account (TFSA) to the deceased’s spouse TFSA would qualify as an “exempt contribution” (i.e. the contribution room in the surviving spouse’s TFSA would not be affected by the addition…
The Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan was recently asked (in the case of Gust vs. Langan et al., 2020 SKQB 42) whether a will handwritten on a paper napkin created by the deceased sometime before his death met the requirements of being a valid will under the relevant Act to permit…
In past blogs, we discussed income splitting arrangements available to individuals who wish to loan funds to his/her lower income spouse or adult child, or in the case of minor children, a discretionary family trust. Such loans would be used to invest in income producing properties such as marketable securities,…
The freezing of current share value so that your chosen successors can easily participate in the future growth of your enterprise is a common estate planning technique. What if the value of the frozen shares now exceeds the value of the enterprise as a whole? I wrote about this sometime…
An executor, as the legal representative of the estate, is required to obtain a clearance certificate before distributing property that they control. Where the executor fails to obtain a clearance certificate, they are liable for any unpaid amounts in respect of any property distributed. Some will argue that not every…
During her marriage, a spouse inhabited a home wholly owned by her husband. He passed away and the house became an asset of the estate. Subsequent to her husband’s passing, the spouse purchased a new property. She had not re-married or entered into any common law partnership. Is the spouse…
In the recent case of Sokalski Estate (Re), 2019 ABQB 285, the deceased left two wills one in 2011 and the other 2017, without expressly revoking the earlier one. The estate applied to the Court for a determination regarding which document or documents form the deceased Mr. Sokalski’s last will….