Estate Planning for Your Pets In Ontario
As of 2018, 41% of Canadian households have at least one dog and 35% of Canadian households have at least one cat. And if you are one of those households, chances are you consider your animal companion a part of the family. Yet it is not uncommon that many pet owners fail to account for […]
Planning for the Unexpected: Selecting Guardians for Minor Children
A survey from 2018 estimates that 51% of Canadians don’t have wills. Of those polled, 25% think they are too young, and 23% don’t believe they have enough assets for a will. Eight percent reported that they didn’t have a will because they did not want to think about dying. I have heard from parents with young […]
Planning for the Family Cottage
The dog days of summer are finally here and for many of us, this is prime cottage season. A cottage property is a common asset for many in Ontario, however, one could argue that no other asset has the potential to cause so much trouble later on. As the name suggests, a “family cottage” is an asset which […]
Who Gets the Grandfather Clock?
Or, as I heard yesterday, the grandmother clock. When you think of preparing a will, you are usually thinking about your money —however much or little money there is, and that, of course, includes the proceeds of the sale of assets such as your house. Your focus tends to be on making sure that the […]
Who is Entitled to See the Will?
A Will is a living document and will change over the course of your lifetime. You are allowed to show your Will to anyone you like, but you are also entitled to keep it private. Upon execution of your Will, you should confirm with your estate trustee that they have been named in your Will […]
Contingency Planning in Business: Are You Prepared for the Unexpected?
When you are busy building a business, planning and preparing for the unexpected may be the last task on your long to-do list. It is a task that is easy to push into the future when there are seemingly more pressing and urgent matters to manage and address. Succession and contingency planning, however, is something […]
Social Media, Digital Assets and Estate Planning
In this day and age, preparing a will is not as simple as it used to be. In the past, a list of bank accounts, real estate assets (for those of you lucky to have a house, and even a cottage!), and investment holdings was all you really needed to worry about with respect to […]
The Relevance of Capacity to a Will
When you choose to prepare estate planning documents such as a will and powers of attorney for property and personal care, it is a pre-condition for signing those documents that you have the capacity to sign them. “Capacity” means the ability to fully understand what you are signing and the effect of what you are […]
Formal Validity of Wills
A will must have formal validity to be accepted for probate. This means that the will must be written down and signed in conformity with the Succession Law Reform Act, and case law. Any estate lawyer is familiar with these requirements however, individuals who try to draft their own wills or use will kits are […]
