Articles 2020

When administering an estate, an executor needs to settle the estate’s debts before he or she can distribute the estate to beneficiaries, and failure to do this can leave the executor personally liable for those debts. But what if an executor isn’t aware of all outstanding debts? This article contains information about the form of notice to creditors, when to publish, and other matters the executor should keep in mind in order to protect the executor and the estate.

This article contains information regarding estates owning corporations, including consideration of clearance certificates under both the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act, post-mortem tax saving strategies, and using the deceased's lifetime capital gains exemption.

Discussion included new sections of the Criminal Code regarding the process for medical assistance in dying without a court order, changes to the SLRA changing the definition of child/issue to include posthumously conceived children, and changes to the Principal Residence Exemption rules.

Discussion included the availability of the Estates Manual for use in the courts, circumstances where an out of province estate trustee was seeking probate, and the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision of Attorney General of Canada v. Fairmont Hotels Inc.

In providing independent legal advice (ILA) a lawyer must meet the standard of a competent lawyer and ensure that the client understands the nature and effect of the transaction and its consequences and is entering the transaction freely and on their own volition. ILA is not required in every circumstance, the jurisprudence confirms this and guidance gleaned suggests it is case specific.

In this second part of a two-part article series, we will examine the income tax implications that may arise when a successor subscriber is named by the deceased in the will and the consequences when such a person is not named.

There is no secret that when administering an estate the debts of the estate must be settled before any of the beneficiaries can receive the property bequeathed. An estate trustee may discover that after funeral costs, administration costs, and other debts, the value of the estate is insufficient to satisfy all of the specific or residuary gifts. This is when the principles of abatement come into play.

The continuing multitude of disputes concerning joint accounts after Pecore and Madsen illustrate how difficult it is to align real life into the confines of legal principles. Legal concepts and rebuttable onuses are often not top of mind when parents organize their financial affairs. Formal documentation to support joint ownership with right of survivorship is ideal but as discussed in this article, even the most informal of notes may suffice.

A wide variety of topics were discussed at October's Brown Bag Lunch meeting, including whether an alternate trustee can renounce before he/she has been called upon to act, whether a separated or divorced spouse was entitled to collect pre-retirement benefit of which he/she was named as beneficiary, and whether law frims are continuing to store Wills and POAs for clients.