12 June 2019 TAGS: Wills Estate Planning in Ancient Egypt Writing a will ensures that you have a say over how your estate is handled after you die. This is nothing new. The oldest known will was created in Ancient Egypt.
7 June 2019 TAGS: Estates Where to Store Your Will When thinking of where to store your will, it is important that you think of storing it in a secure place that will be safe from fire, water damage and theft.
6 May 2019 TAGS: Executors Terminal Tax Returns When a person passes away, his or her executor or estate administrator is required to file a final income tax return. It is important to ensure that any outstanding tax returns from previous years are also completed and filed. Failure to file previous returns may result interest or penalty charges.
26 April 2019 TAGS: Discussion What Happens When a Will is Lost or Destroyed Wills are required to legally administer the estate and should be kept somewhere safe (typically, in a safety deposit box at a bank, at the client’s lawyer’s office, or, a secure location at home).
22 April 2019 TAGS: Estates When is it necessary to advertise for creditors? Advertising for creditors is an important step to protect an estate trustee from liability for the debts of the deceased. Publishing a notice to creditors is appropriate for most estates. And if a client does not wish to advertise, it is advisable to get a signed direction letter confirming this.
11 April 2019 TAGS: Estates Case Brief: Challenging a will because of a "material mistake of fact" In Cavanagh et al. v. Sutherland et al., a mother had made a will disinheriting one of her six daughters. After the mother died, this daughter argued that the will was invalid because the mother's decision to disinherit her was "contingent on a material mistake of fact."
9 April 2019 TAGS: Estates Photocopies of wills The general rule for probating a will is that you must submit the original will to the court. You simply cannot send a photocopy of the will to the court as if it were an original.
4 April 2019 TAGS: Wills Marriage and the Revocation of Wills If you have executed a will before getting married in Ontario, it is automatically revoked upon marriage. This means, the entire will is invalid. One way to avoid this is to make a will in contemplation of marriage.
1 April 2019 TAGS: Estates Formal Requirements to make Will in Ontario There are certain requirements that must be met in order for a will to be valid. Generally, all Canadian provinces and territories have the same or similar formal requirements.
27 March 2019 TAGS: Company Updates Case Study - Publishing a Notice to Creditors on NoticeConnect Protected this Client from a Five-Figure Debt Advertising for creditors on NoticeConnect.com protected this lawyer's client from a five-figure debt.
15 March 2019 TAGS: Estates Does Every Will Need to be Probated? Generally, a personal representative, or executor, must probate the Will of the deceased. This means it is the executor’s responsibility to prove in court that the Will meets all the legal requirements.
12 March 2019 TAGS: Estates Testamentary Capacity - Who can make a will? In the majority of will challenges, testamentary capacity is often the main issue of the case. Will drafting lawyers are strongly encouraged to determine their client’s mental capacity for the purposes of signing a Will.
8 March 2019 TAGS: Estates Do Millennials Need Wills? How young is too young to make a will? Probably younger than you think.
19 February 2019 TAGS: Estates Our will registry keeps your information confidential We're launching the Canada Will Registry this Spring. We've designed it in a way that keeps your data confidential and we've obtained a legal opinion from a leading Canadian law firm confirming that estate practitioners have the implicit consent of their clients to register their wills with us.
14 February 2019 TAGS: Discussion The top three strangest wills Some people think creating a will is a solemn occasion - a way of staring down one’s own mortality and acknowledging that nothing lasts forever. Others, by contrast, have taken it upon themselves to make their wills as eccentric and unique as they were in life.
8 February 2019 TAGS: Discussion Millions worth of Bitcoin inaccessible because of a lost password Investors of the Canadian cryptocurrency company QuadrigaCX are left disgruntled and worried after the co-founder and CEO, Gerald Cotten, died. You may be wondering why this is an important story for those of you who are in the business of estates. Well, let’s break it down.
28 January 2019 TAGS: Estates It's official: wills are not trusts The Divisional Court has resolved the recent confusion caused by the conflicting Milne and Panda decisions about the validity of certain wills containing "basket clauses".
17 December 2018 TAGS: Company Updates Introducing the Canada Will Registry NoticeConnect is launching the Canada Will Registry in 2019. We're building on our Knowledge of a Will notices to solve the problem of identifying missing or competing wills.
30 November 2018 TAGS: Discussion What We're Reading For those of us here at NoticeConnect, we like to keep on top of the latest estate news and issues so we don’t lose touch with what’s most important to our clients.
15 November 2018 TAGS: Case Law Case Brief: What happens when burial arrangements are contested? In Miller v Miller, 2018 ONSC 6625 the children of the deceased strongly disagreed over where their mother should be buried until an estate trustee could be appointed by the court.
7 November 2018 TAGS: Estates Make A Will Month Every year, the Ontario Bar Association makes it their mission to educate Canadians on the importance of having a will by hosting free events across Ontario.
5 October 2018 TAGS: Estates Five Pets that Inherited Big Money What happens to your pets after you die? It has become increasingly common for people to set up trusts for their furry friends to make sure they’re being well taken care of after their owners have passed on.
17 September 2018 TAGS: Estates TLA to Distribute NoticeConnect's Knowledge of a Will Notices Our Knowledge of a Will notices ask the legal community if anyone has or knows about a particular will. We're proud to announce that the Toronto Lawyers Association will be distributing these notices to its members.
13 September 2018 TAGS: Case Law Case Brief: When is a will invalid? In Milne Estate (Re), 2018 ONSC 4174, the Superior Court answers the question: Is a will that grants the executors the discretion to determine what property is subject to the will a valid will?
24 August 2018 TAGS: Case Law What happens when a beneficiary can't be found? If a beneficiary can't be found, when is it appropriate to assume they've died? The Superior Court of Justice considered this issue in Steele v. Smith, 2018 ONSC 4601 and granted a motion declaring that a missing beneficiary had died before the testator.