Estate Planning

I have always stated that the Power of Attorney for Finances needs to be able to support the decisions made by the Power of Attorney for Personal Care. In order words, care needs should dictate where monies should be spent. The first part of the equation is understanding what the person requires today and what they likely will require tomorrow. How much care do they require and for what activities….

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….

In my last blog I referred to Thomas Piketty’s new book, ‘Capital in the Twenty First Century’. Thomas Piketty is an acclaimed economist and his book is a compilation of extensive studies about capital and capital flows. Capital has a variety of different meanings. In this book ‘capital’ is defined as the value of all […]

A new study reported on this week found that daughters are significantly more helpful than sons when it comes to taking care of their elderly parents.  Referencing data found from surveying 26,000 Americans, it seems that daughters spend on average 12.3 hours a month looking after an elderly parent versus sons who spend on average 5.6 hours a month caring for their elderly parents.  Significantly, gender is an important factor….

Over the years since All About Estates has existed there have been several blogs dealing with the roles and responsibilities of acting as an executor/trustee, as well as the potential liability an executor/trustee faces. As estate planners we work with our clients in understanding the “job” of being an executor/trustee so our clients can make an appropriate selection. We also work with our clients in recommending that they include an….

With the tragic death of Robin Williams, who touched so many of us with his humour, this week’s blog is about mental health and specifically, depression. The Canadian Coalition for Seniors Mental Health tells us that depression is the most common mental health problem for older adults and has ‘profound negative impacts on all aspects of their life, not to mention the impact on family and the community’. Depression is….