Testamentary ambiguity is often the spark that ignites a court battle after the death of a loved one. Across the province, courthouse case lists are full of feuding relatives who have seized on inaccuracy or vagueness in the deceased’s will to challenge the inheritances left to their fellow beneficiaries. In
In my long career in estates law, I have learned to spot which wills are most likely to end up in court after the testator’s death. Wills governing larger value estates are often candidates for future litigation, but the truth is you don’t need to be rich for your
Testators need to get specific if they want their will to revoke their beneficiary designations, according to Ontario’s Court of Appeal. In a recent decision involving a dispute among a deceased mother’s four children, the province’s top court found that a standard clause revoking “all Wills and Testamentary dispositions of every nature and
When it comes to your estate, your kids don’t need to be minor to be dependants. Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act allows dependants of the deceased to make a claim against the estate if they are inadequately provided for in the will. Typically, these cases are brought by a spouse who was
Drafting your will is just the first step in the estate planning process. The second, (often-overlooked) stage involves keeping the will safe and available until the time comes for it to go into effect. In one recent B.C. case, the family of a B.C. man had to turn to the courts
Advance care planning can help people break the silence around end-of-life care. While societal attitudes towards sex and money have relaxed in the last few decades, there’s an argument to be made that death and end-of-life care are among the most pervasive taboos of our time. Statistics quoted by the Canadian Association
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