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…
In Estate of Sydney Monteith v. Monteith, the court declined to award a share of the Deceased’s estate to his foster sister. Sydney (the “Deceased”) died on March 16, 2022. He left no Will. He had no spouse or issue and was predeceased by both his adoptive parents. Pursuant to…
In Alger v. Crumb, the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed that a general revocation clause in a will did not revoke the testator’s TFSA and RRIF beneficiary designations. The Court concluded that under s. 51 and s. 52 of the Succession Law Reform Act (“SLRA”), the beneficiary designations have to be expressly…
A Thought Experiment Recently, I had the opportunity to co-author a paper on deathbed retainers with Justin de Vries. In drafting this paper, I had the occasion to think about deathbed wills from every conceivable angle. The idea for this blog started as footnote 81: a hypothetical thought experiment on…
This blog was co-authored with Ronald Neal, student-at-law. John the Farmer wanted to buy the family farm after his mother died. His siblings wanted to sell it on the open market. In Janicek v. Janicek, 2018 ONSC 681, the court had to decide which outcome the will dictated. Background The…
The family law bar must be breathing a sigh of relief after reading the Court of Appeal’s decision in Dagg v. Cameron Estate, 2017 ONCA 366. Both the application judge and the Divisional Court (discussed on this blog, respectively, here and here) held that a life insurance policy taken out…