Why Podcast?
I was thinking about this whole social media scene in the area of Estate podcasting and I have to admit that I was dragged into the second stage of blogging, kicking and screaming.
My law partner and co-host of our two Podcasts, Suzana Popovic-Montag, suggested to me a couple of months ago that while she liked the idea of Podcasts she thought we should do 2 per week. One focused on the lawyers who we work with in the estates area and one for lawyers and people generally interested in estate planning issues.
Out of her idea sprang our Podcasts and we just launched our 8th of the series. While our 16th Podcast is certainly better than the first one, we are both working on our skills as interviewers and as information delivery people.
I am struck by the ever-growing and almost always useful legal Podcasts that are available on line and I commend them to you. A key word search in itunes or any of the podcast resources brings up many choices. "Coast to Coast" is one of the leading US Legal Podcasts and if you are interested in learning about podcasting generally, I suggest "Podcast 411" .
Episode 8 of our "Hull on Estates" Podcast was released this morning and we continued with our current intensive legal analysis of the important concept of Testamentary Capacity. We are going to spend a considerable amount of time on this legal issue and we are confident that it will prove to be a useful summary of the topic. While this area of the law is ever-changing, we think our Podcast series will be a helpful resource for lawyers and we encourage our listeners to go back over these Podcasts to assist them in understanding the various aspects of the topic.
Suzana and I are certainly learning a great deal about this area of the law in the course of reviewing it for our Podcasts. In this Podcast, we tackled the concept of suspicious circumstances. We broke down testamentary capacity a bit further, beyond insane delusions. We also looked at capacity as opposed to the idea of knowledge and approval. Suzana talked about the test and reminded us that the onus is on those who propound the will to prove it is a valid will.
However, where you have suspicious circumstances, the propounder of the will needs to lead evidence to deal with this allegation. The Supreme Court of Canada Case in Vout v. Hay is the leading case on this topic. While we touched on the concept of undue influence we just talked about the overlap with suspicious circumstances. We intend to really work through undue influence in future Podcasts.
"Hull on Estate and Succession Planning" episode 8 dealt with (in plain English) a review of the concept of applying for probate and the other basic duties of an executor. We then turned to the topic of executor's fees. We looked at the kinds of family tension that gets created when someone is paid for this service, and we discussed the factors the courts will consider in deciding how much the executor should be paid. We pointed out that there are other people who are involved in the estate administration process, such as lawyers and accountants. The whole question of paying these professionals should be disclosed to the beneficiaries as a financial reality, and executors need to make sure that beneficiaries know this will be an expense of the estate. I like to give the beneficiaries the range of those fees. We also talked about the thorny issue of removing an executor. Suzana pointed out that the courts are typically reluctant to remove executors unless you can prove real misconduct on their part. The choice of executor can create a great deal of tension and, as such, careful consideration needs to be given to the choice.
At the end of the day, you get what you pay for and the fees for the executor and the professional fees can be money well spent. Finally, we reviewed some of the income tax and tax filings obligations of the executor. Again, we tried to work through estate planning issues in plain language, although it is almost impossible when dealing with tax issues!
Off for now have a great day, Ian and Suzana --------
