All About Estates

Category: Disability

Total 77 Posts

When is a Gift not a Gift?

Styres v. Martin 2018 ONCA 956 is a case of a gift that unfolded a saga (not over yet and far from it) of diminished capacity, alleged breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, undue influence to name a few. Mr. Styres lived in a house he built…

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Statutory Guardianship of Property vs. a Continuing Power of Attorney for Property: They are not the same!

My June 2017 blog described that most seniors appoint a continuing power of attorney for property (CPOAP), partly to avoid having the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPG&T) assume the role of statutory guardian of property under the Substitute Decisions Act (SDA) or the Mental Health Act (MHA)…

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Welcome Amendments to the ODSP General Regulation

Please note, this blog has since been updated here. In my last blog, I began looking at the treatment of the “matrimonial home” under the Ontario Family Law Act, and promised to continue that discussion in my next blog, which of course is this blog. I have decided to put…

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Cancer 1: Dementia 0

Over the last few weeks I had the pleasure of attending two hospital events. One was a fundraiser for the new Women’s (College) Hospital and the other was a recognition lunch by Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation; two world class hospitals that we are lucky to have located in Toronto. Both…

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Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and Undue Influence

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the ban on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was unconstitutional (for a summary of the decision, click here). However, MAiD is not available to all persons; to qualify, a person requesting MAiD must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition including…

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Capacity to Contract – The Settlement Edition

Capable adults are free to enter into a contract with one another. Once entered into, the contract is binding on the parties (exceptions apply) and they may ask the court for assistance enforcing the terms of the contract. Different rules apply to contracts entered into by minors (in Ontario, the…

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The Application for the Disability Tax Credit to be Reviewed: Hallelujah!

As most of you know, the Disability Tax Credit is a credit to income tax otherwise payable, available for those with a severe or prolonged impairment. It is meant to provide some relief from the additional costs and expenses incurred associated with the impairment. It is also referred to by…

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The Principal Residence Exemption and Qualified Disability Trusts

I previously blogged about changes that could be made to the current qualified disability trust (“QDT”) rules to make them more flexible. In that blog I briefly referred to changes to the principal residence exemption that limit the types of personal trusts that can use the exemption, one of which…

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Further Reform Needed to Support Disability Benefits Recipients

As my fellow bloggers have recently written, changes have been made to the Ontario Disability Support Program (“ODSP”) effective September 1, 2017, three of which are of particular importance for estate planning purposes: The amount a benefits recipient can receive in the form of gifts, trust distributions, and life insurance…

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Will Planning for Beneficiaries

In what might be one of the last pipeline transactions my office will advise on (depending on the outcome of the Government of Canada tax proposals), I ran into an unfortunate situation which served to highlight a fundamental aspect of estate planning: Planning for your beneficiaries. Recently, I reached out…

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