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Estate Planning

Toronto Estate Law Blog

Provided by Hull & Hull.

Post Frequency: 11.3/day

Last Entry: May 24, 2013 at 02:40:32

He Said What?

Posted on May 24, 2013
Slang plays a large part in our daily lives. Keeping up with slang expressions can be a near impossible task. However, thanks to the Urban Dictionary website, that task is an easier one. Urban Dictionary, started in 1999, is a 'crowdsourced' collection of slang...

Deciding Who Gets the Icon

Posted on May 23, 2013
The division of personal property left by a loved one on his or her death can be a thorny issue. Often, the deceased gives directions to the Estate Trustee with respect to his or her intentions. These can be in the form of a memorandum incorporated into a Will...

Little Miss Muffet Listened to Buffet and Gave her Estate Away

Posted on May 22, 2013
In a recent article in the Globe & Mail, Thane Stenner dissects some helpful and balanced advice on issues related to estate planning by American businessman, investor and philanthropist, Warren Buffett. His advice is not of the sort one might expect from a successful business magnate...

Don't Fear the Reaper - Songs for the Dying

Posted on May 21, 2013
When practicing in the area of estates, we often only think of death in its legal context. We consider the Deceased's assets, beneficiaries and claims against made against the estate. What is often glossed over, however, is the actual end-of-life of the person who left behind what is being fought over...

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525,600 minutes

Posted on May 17, 2013
I recently attended the production of ‘Rent' at the Lower Ossington Theatre. The musical has been a favourite of mine for years. I know the words to almost all of the songs, albeit if I have to sing them, it is fairly off key. One of the songs in the musical (which gained some popularity at the time the musical was originally on Broadway in 1996) is called Seasons of Love...

Safe Keeping

Posted on May 16, 2013
Have you ever had something that was special, that you wanted to put in a special place to make sure nothing bad happened to it? You find the perfect spot for it and put it away. Only to have to go looking for it days, months or years later and fail to remember where that ‘perfect spot' was...

Mental Health Gets a Checkup

Posted on May 15, 2013
The American Psychiatric Association is set to publish the fifth and latest edition of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5, this month. The DSM-5 will change the way mental disorders are defined and identified by researchers and practitioners in the field...

Nate Dogg - Just One More Fight

Posted on May 14, 2013
No one wants to be embroiled in a family fight. No one wants their parents to disinherit them. No one want to fight with their siblings. Yet, as Estate litigators, we know that even those with the best expectations and planning are not immune to estate litigation...

Hull on Estates #331 - Passing of Accounts

Posted on May 14, 2013
Listen to: Hull on Estates Episode #331 – Passing of Accounts Today on Hull on Estates, David Smith and Jonathon Kappy discuss procedural nuances on a passing of accounts application. If you have any questions, please e-mail us at hull.lawyers@gmail...

Arbitrator Judy

Posted on May 13, 2013
I recently came across an article in the American Bar Association's ABA Journal that contains some surprising results from a Reader's Digest poll. The magazine polled over a thousand Americans to determine the top one hundred most trusted people in the United States...

$10 million cost award for "outrageous" conduct during litigation

Posted on May 10, 2013
I attended a seminar about e-discovery last month where we discussed the importance of disclosing all documents that are relevant to the issues pled in litigation. The failure to disclose relevant documents can lead to devastating cost consequences...

Lean on Me

Posted on May 09, 2013
A new survey finds that 19% of the people polled would risk their own financial security to support their adult children, according to a recent article in the Toronto Star. The rising cost of post-secondary college is one of the factors causing adult children to be increasingly reliant on their parents for financial assistance...

Hull on Estates #331 - Issues Involving Minors and Incapables

Posted on May 09, 2013
Listen to: Hull on Estates Episode #331 – Issues Involving Minors and Incapables This week on Hull on Estates, Natalia Angelini and Jonathon Kappy discuss issues involving minors and incapables. Specifically, they discuss accepting payment into court for the benefit of individuals under the age of majority as well as various statutes dealing with accepting payment into court...

The Little Things that Count

Posted on May 08, 2013
Estate disputes can be as emotionally charged as litigation gets. Often, there are homes, bank accounts and other valuable assets at stake. In many circumstances, the things that trigger the fighting are not the assets themselves. There are sibling rivalries, parent-child animosity, and first and second family tensions present which play themselves out through protracted litigation about RRSPs or a life interest in a condominium...

Power of Attorney - Be Careful Who you Appoint

Posted on May 07, 2013
Justice J. Wilson's decision in Ferraton v. Shular is a cautionary tale about how important it is to choose someone trustworthy to be your Attorney for Property. In 2006, Gary Shular inherited his mother's property. Mr. Shular had a history of mental illness and depression...

You Don't Have to Die to be Declared Dead

Posted on May 06, 2013
The sensational story of Brenda Heist has been getting a substantial amount of news coverage recently. According to reports, the woman and mother had been missing for 11 years and was presumed dead. That is until she turned herself into police on April 26th...

The Family That's Buried Together, Stays Together

Posted on May 03, 2013
The standing joke about cemeteries is that they are so popular, people are dying to get in. Apparently, some people have to go to greater lengths than others, as was recently demonstrated in the peculiar case of Smith v. Cataraqui Cemetery Company,2013 ONSC 2468 (CanLII)...

Form of Order in Applications to Prove a Lost Will

Posted on May 02, 2013
In a recent blog, Suzana Popovic-Montag discussed the Court process to be followed when proving a lost or destroyed will in Ontario - both in situations where all those with a financial interest in the estate consent to the will being proven and in situations where those with a financial interest do not unanimously agree to the will being proven...

A Vial Dispute

Posted on May 01, 2013
When a person dies, those left behind are tasked with the challenge of dividing and distributing his or her property. Disputes often erupt about how to split this property, and the answers usually lie in a will or statute setting out to whom the property is to go...

Hull on Estates #330 - Dependant Support Claims

Posted on May 01, 2013
Listen to: Hull on Estates #330 – Dependant Support Claims Today on Hull on Estates, Paul Trudelle and Noah Weisberg discuss dependant support claims with respect to a recent decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. A link to the case can be found here...

Section 72 of SLRA: Expanded Definition of "Estate" in an Dependant's Relief Application

Posted on April 30, 2013
In Stevens v. Fisher, 2013 ONSC 2282 (CanLII), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently considered the expanded definition of 'estate' against which a dependant can claim in a dependent's relief application, by virtue of section 72 of the Succession Law Reform Act R...

Section 72 of SLRA: Expanded Definition of "Estate" in a Dependant's Relief Application

Posted on April 30, 2013
In Stevens v. Fisher, 2013 ONSC 2282 (CanLII), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently considered the expanded definition of 'estate' against which a dependant can make a claim in a dependent's relief application, by virtue of section 72 of the Succession Law Reform Act R...

Getting "Escheated" out of an Inheritance

Posted on April 29, 2013
A recent New York Times article tells the story of Roman Blum, a holocaust survivor who died last year at the age of 97. Mr. Blum left behind an estate with an approximate value of $40 million. The problem is, however, that Mr. Blum apparently died without ever having made a will and he apparently has no living relatives who would be entitled to benefit from his estate...

The Right-to-Die Debate Revisited

Posted on April 26, 2013
A recent article in the Globe and Mail takes another look at the right-to-die debate after the death of social activist Ruth Goodman, who passed away February 2, 2013, by her own hand. Ms. Goodman left a note that reads: 'People are allowed to choose the right time to terminate their animals' lives and to be with them and provide assistance and comfort, right to the end...

Invasive Procedures

Posted on April 25, 2013
About 90,000 people die in Ontario every year. Of those, about 16,000 are reported to the Coroner's Office (or roughly 17%). According to the Office of the Chief Coroner Report for 2009-2011, in 2010, there were 16,415 coroner's investigations...

Your Honour, My Dog Ate the Will

Posted on April 24, 2013
The problem of lost or destroyed wills is nothing to bark at. Wills are very important documents that are often prepared years, and sometimes decades, in advance of when they will be needed. In today's world of photocopiers, PDFs, and email attachments, a scan or copy of a document will suffice for most purposes, and we have become unaccustomed to preserving original documents...

Joint, Last-to-Die Life Insurance

Posted on April 23, 2013
An article by Ron Clarke provides an excellent overview of Joint, Last-To-Die Insurance. These types of policies are designed to pay a tax-freebenefit upon the death of the lastsurviving spouse. Once a couple chooses this type of policy, neither can change the beneficiary designation without the written consent of the other spouse...

Hull on Estates #329 - Limitation Periods

Posted on April 23, 2013
Listen to: Hull on Estates #329 – Limitation Periods Today on Hull on Estates, David Smith and Saman Jaffery discuss the recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision in McConnell v. Huxtable. This recent decision considers what limitation period applies in respect of a constructive trust claim in connection with real property in a family law context...

An Aging Ontario

Posted on April 22, 2013
This past Thursday, the Ontario Government announced that it would be implementing increased access to physiotherapy, exercise and fall prevention classes for the province's seniors. As part of the announcement, health minister Deb Matthews said that the government will be spending $156 million (an increase of $10 million from last year) to provide more people in communities and long-term care homes with individualized physiotherapy, group exercise classes and services to prevent falls...

Limitation Periods: A "Statutory Gap"

Posted on April 19, 2013
A decision reported this past week in the Ontario Reports delves into the often murky waters of limitation periods. McConnell v. Huxtable, a decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (and apparently under appeal), considers whether a limitation period applies in respect of constructive trust claims to real property in a family law proceeding...

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