Real Estate Law Blog

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Beware joint ownership risks during estate planning

Testators should know the risks before using joint ownership as an estate planning tool.  There are certainly good reasons for owning property jointly with a beneficiary – top among them its effectiveness as a way to transfer assets while avoiding the 1.5 per-cent probate tax otherwise payable on assets in a person’s

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$1.9-million estate goes unclaimed in B.C.

Normally when I write about a multi-million-dollar estate, it’s in the context of an ugly fight between the beneficiaries of a wealthy person that has made the news or ended up in court.  However, the B.C. Unclaimed Property Society  recently made a different kind of news when it announced that

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Succession planning a must for lawyers

Lawyers need to practice what they preach and implement a succession plan that kicks in when they are no longer willing or able to continue in the profession.   Sole and small-firm practitioners have no problem telling their clients to get an estate plan in place to ensure their family and friends

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New trust reporting rules on their way

Trusts are getting more transparent. Since 2018, the Federal government has been planning to chip away at the privacy of a wide variety of trust types. Legislation originally slated to come into force last year dramatically increased the amount of information they must turn over to the Canada Revenue Agency,

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Canada’s common-law couple boom calls for estates action

Canada’s common-law couple boom must be matched by a wave of new estate plans if spouses want to be protected when their partners die. Over the last few decades, common-law couples have gone from the fringes to the mainstream. While they accounted for just 6 per cent of spousal relationships

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Big changes, small impact as probate process overhauled

Applying for probate in Ontario has just become a little simpler, but it’s still not an attractive prospect for estate trustees. The provincial government recently announced changes to the Rules of Civil Procedure that eliminate most of the estate court forms previously required to apply for probate, cutting the total

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