Category Archives: Money / Investments

Enlist Professionals for Your Estate Planning Team!

Wealth management: a contact sport?

Figuring out who to have on your team when planning your estate can be a challenging task. This article outlines some tips to make sure you have all the right professionals on your team, in order to ensure that your estate plan provides you with peace of mind.

Full Story at The Blunt Bean Counter.

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ERAssure®, Canada’s only provider of executor liability insurance provides FREE Inheritance Planning Guides and Executor Guides to help in the process of both estate planning and estate administration.

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Common-Law Partners’ Estate Rights

Jonathan Chevreau of the Financial Post reviews Canadian laws with respect to common-law couples and their rights to their partner’s assets upon death. (more…)

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Couples Entering Second or Third Marriages Should Discuss Finances & Estate Planning

Madeleine White from The Globe and Mail discusses the importance of couples entering their second or third marriage to have up-front discussions about their finances and wills. (more…)

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Increase in Estate Litigation in Canada

Fights over inheritances are not uncommon, and parents are taking more steps to protect their estates from legal battles after they are gone.

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Estate Administration in the Midst of a Divorce

Photo courtesy of http://www.bravotv.com

The death of Russell Armstrong, husband to Taylor Armstrong of Bravo TV’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fame, raises issues about estate administration in the midst of a divorce. (more…)

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Estate Dispute Between Brothers Over Family Home Ends in Tragedy

A common sibling estate dispute that I see in my practice involves the family home where an adult sibling continues to reside in the home after the parent has died.

Sometimes a sibling will move in to take care of the elderly parent. In other situations, the parent is caring for an adult child who is disabled. Or the child may be living with the parent because he or she is unemployed or has recently been separated or divorced.

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What If a Gift in a Will No Longer Exists?

In this article Lauren Liang of Clark Wilson discusses the importance of an updated will when it comes to Gifts.

What happens if a specific gift you were promised under a will no longer exists at the time of the testator’s death? The short answer is the missing gift fails, and you may have no claim to an equivalent benefit from the estate. For example, if your father left you his Honda in his will and subsequently sold the Honda and bought a Mercedes, (more…)

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Baby Boomers Face a New, Lean Inheritance Reality

When the markets crashed in 2009 many Boomers lost up to 25% of their investment capital. With interest rates low and markets slow to return it will take a long time to regain the loss….for many this is the estate they planned on leaving for their children.

Combined with a longer life span, stats Canada reports the number of people older than 100 rose to a record 5,825 people last year, a 35-per-cent increase from just a decade ago the amount of wealth available for transfer to Boomer children is depleting.  Grant Robertson discusses the impact and some tips on subsequent estate planning  in this Globe and Mail article

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Family Feuds Can Escalate Over Estates

As the parents of baby boomers age, more and more individuals will find themselves falling in to large inheritances. Problems arise, however, when “waiters” (who spend in anticipation of receiving an inheritance when a family member passes) find themselves surprised with the will. This can lead to an escalation of family fighting as financial pressures become much more stressful.

In this article published in USA Today, Canadian wills and estates lawyer Les Kotzer discusses how the transformation of family relationships will lead to more ugliness after a family member’s death. Baby boomers engaging in high-risk financial planning in volatile markets will have more reason to fight their brother or sister over provisions in the will or make an allegation of favouritism against the executor.

He goes on to explain how estate planning today while parents are still alive and healthy may allow siblings to salvage relationships in the future.

Full story at USA Today. 

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When a Beneficiary Wishes to Challenge a Will

It is a common scenario: a child believes that he or she will inherit large sums of money or other assets upon the death of one of their parents, only to be shocked when the will provides for a much smaller amount than anticipated, or worse, nothing at all. When a beneficiary is disappointed with the provisions of a will, however, there are opportunities for him or her to challenge it.  (more…)

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