Brown Bag Lunch - April 21, 2020

With a state of emergency still in effect in Ontario, the OBA Trusts and Estates Law section’s Brown Bag Lunch on April 21, 2020 was held virtually over Zoom. A strong showing of OBA members from across the province joined the Zoom meeting to discuss hot topics in trusts and estates law despite (or perhaps because of) the impact of COVID-19.

The BBL started off with a discussion regarding the recent case of Boulos v. Duca Financial Services Credit Union, 2020 ONSC 1946. In that case, a client of Duca Financial Services Credit Union had named a beneficiary of his RRSP. When the holder of the RRSP turned 71, the RRSP was converted to a RRIF, but the beneficiary designation was not carried over. Upon  the death of the would-be beneficiary (who died after the RRIF holder), the beneficiary’s estate trustee claimed that the RRSP designation should have been carried over to the RRIF. In his decision, Justice Perell stated that the paramount consideration with regards to the gift is intention. In this case, since the deceased wanted the beneficiary to get the RRSP and surely the RRIF as well, the beneficiary’s estate was entitled to the RRIF despite the fact that there was no beneficiary designation to this effect. Some BBL attendees did not agree with this decision and hoped it would be confined to situations where an RRSP is automatically converted to a RRIF, and not applied to situations where an annuitant actively takes steps to convert his or her RRSP, and simply neglects to name a beneficiary.