Woman ordered to pay legal costs of $27k in fight over mother’s $27k estate
When your legal fees are the same size as the entire estate you’re fighting over, you know something has gone wrong. One of the enduring and recurring lessons that I…
Judge may have opened the door to electronic wills in Ontario
Ontario is one step closer to recognizing electronic wills after a judge cast doubt on the province’s apparent ban. In a recent Ontario Superior Court case, the judge was asked…
When a mirror will may not be right for you
Mirror wills are among the most common choice for married couples getting their estates in order. The technique sees both partners executing their own, almost identical will, each naming the…
Consumer advocates call for POA and executor training
A power of attorney or executor appointment should come with a guidebook. And they soon could, if some financial consumer advocates get their way. Writing for Investment Executive magazine, Mark…
Don’t forget your debts in estate planning
When you get past the squeamishness of confronting your own death, it can be rewarding to think about how to allocate all of your major financial, physical and sentimentally valuable…
Mother intended to gift daughter $1.7m withdrawn from joint account, court finds
Opening a joint account with your child is not a step to be taken lightly. There are undeniably good estate planning reasons for owning property jointly with a beneficiary, since…
Court intervention required after testator outlives her executor and most beneficiaries
In some ways, outliving your beneficiaries is a good problem to have. It’s usually a sign that you’ve lived a long (and hopefully healthy) life, but it should also be…
Disinherited daughter must pay sister $55k costs for meritless will challenge
Testators should expect some blowback from their disinherited kids when they decide to split their estate unequally between their children. Whatever the state of their recent relationship, the death of…
Family business issues complicate administration of mother’s estate
There’s nothing that blurs the lines between personal and corporate property quite like a family business. And when the founders die, leaving behind their feuding children, it only complicates matters…
$80-million estate of Ontario businessman embroiled in litigation
It’s hard to think of a better recipe for an estate fight than a deceased with an $80-million fortune and skepticism about estate planning. According to a Brantford Expositor story,…
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