Today’s blog was written by Jessica Butler, Law Clerk at Fasken LLP. Many Canadians hold a large share of their wealth in personally-owned real estate and consider it to be a critical part of their wealth-building strategy. Donald Sutherland, the well known Canadian actor who passed away in June of…
Tag: Probate Tax
Total 5 Posts
This blog has been written by Mohena Singh, Associate at Fasken LLP As an estate planner, one of the most common questions I am asked is, “How do I transfer my house or cottage to my family without paying estate administration tax?” A common way we have seen individuals attempt…
As someone who counsels executors and administrators I’ve always been comfortable advising that when applying to probate the will or obtain a certificate of appointment of estate trustee without a will they are required to swear an affidavit attesting to the values of the assets caught on their application and that the values used ought to be based on sound back-up assessments. Those values then form the basis upon which estate administration (probate) taxes are required to be paid to the Minister of Finance. Recently, however, some uncertainty has been thrown into the mix.
Last week my colleague, Laura West, spoke about some of the non-tax pitfalls that can arise when transferring property into joint tenancy with a family member. This week I’m here to follow-up with a discussion of the tax implications that should be considered before changing ownership of property to joint tenancy.
In Ontario, property that a deceased owns as a joint tenant with another person does not form part of his estate for probate tax calculation purposes. As a result, significant attention is now being paid to the use of joint ownership as an estate planning technique to reduce or avoid probate taxes for both real and personal property. However, when property is transferred into joint ownership there are many issues that should be considered other than the potential probate tax savings.