First Last

Can individuals who may have an obligation to support a person making a dependant’s support claim against an estate be added as parties to the support claim? That was the question before the court in Brash v. Zyma. The short answer? Yes. In 2012, Charles Douglas Brash died. At the time of his death, he had been married to Dorothy Brash since 1990. When they married, Dorothy had four adult….

On October 1 the new Rules of Professional Conduct come into effect. As well as rule changes affecting the practice of law generally, there are also specific rule changes relevant to lawyers practising estates and trusts. The new rule 3.4-37 requires a lawyer who drafts a will containing a clause requiring the drafting lawyer to be retained by the trustees to assist with the administration to provide the trustees with….

An emerging trend in estate administration in the past few years seems to be an increase in the number of insolvent estates. An estate is insolvent if it has liabilities in excess of its assets and therefore is unable to meet financial obligations with creditors as the debts become due. There are two primary methods for administration of insolvent estates: common law and statutory schemes under the Trustee Act or….

Today’s post is written by guest blogger Adam Parachin, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Western Ontario. In a recent decision – McCorkill v. Streed 2014 NBQB 148 – the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench took the highly unusual step of striking an unconditionalresiduary bequest on the basis of public policy.  Justice Grant reasoned that the bequest violated public policy due to the white supremacist agenda of….

Many people believe that a Power of Attorney for Personal Care is the proper tool in which to express their intention to donate organs.  Is this correct?  If so, does this mean that an attorney for personal care may be granted the authority to make decisions regarding the grantor’s organ donation? In Canada, organ donation is an “opt-in” regime, and in Ontario, it is governed by the Trillium Gift of….

This will be my last blog for ‘All About Estates’ as I have made the decision to return to my home province of British Columbia and I will be moving from Toronto to Vancouver in August. I have very much enjoyed being part of this blog – I think that it is an excellent source of information for those engaged directly or peripherally in the estates field. Although each of….