There is renewed discussion on whether Canada will become another jurisdiction where specific gift or estate taxes will be imposed on inheritances. There is speculation that the discussion will lead to something concrete as early as next week’s Federal Budget. In the meantime, there are situations where inheritances can come…
Category: Estate Administration
Total 313 Posts
In the blog posted by Maureen Berry on October 9, 2020, my fellow clerks and I wrote about the welcome changes that were introduced that would allow for applications for certificates of appointment of estate trustee (the “Probate Application”) to be filed electronically. It has now been six months since…
Practitioners and clients alike have come to realize that there can be numerous legal challenges to administering a testator’s digital assets, including, among them, ambiguous or restrictive privacy legislation. For most Canadian provinces,[1] the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) does not appear to grant executors, trustees, or…
More often than not, we come across the following question from an Executor: How do I transfer the ownership of the deceased’s vehicle where the deceased specifically named a beneficiary in the Will? This seems like a fairly simple process but as I’ve learned over time, nothing is as simple…
Of all the questions I am asked about the administration of estates, the ones that come up the most frequently are: “what is probate?”; “how do I know if I need probate?”; and “what’s involved in applying for probate?” Herein – the answers.
On occasion, the personal representative of an estate may have to incur costs to either settle or disclose a matter with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). In a translated technical interpretation, the CRA provided some of its own guidance on how to navigate the relevant rule in the Income Tax…
The law in Canada is not static – it evolves and changes to meet our society’s needs through incremental changes to the common law (i.e. the application and interpretation of the law through the courts) and through legislative changes. One recent change to Ontario’s laws was made through the Smarter…
Today’s blog is being brought to you by our guest blogger, Anna Chen The court may remove an executor/estate trustee under its inherent jurisdiction or under section 37 of the Trustee Act.[1] In either case, the test to remove an executor/estate trustee is stringent, as the court will not lightly…
Acting as an estate trustee can be a difficult job. It is often made more difficult when you have to work with a sibling. While the types of disputes co-estate trustees can have with one another are seemingly infinite, one common fight is over valuing an estate asset. Valuing estate…
Introduction Last year, I wrote a blog post about estate planning for tattoo artists, which focused primarily on the intellectual property rights of tattoo artists in their tattoo designs and the ways in which such rights conflict with the rights of the people who actually bear such designs on their…