Toronto Estate Law Blog : Toronto Estate Lawyer : Hull & Hull Law Firm : Trust Mediation and Succession Planning : Serving Ontario, Ottawa, Mississauga, Hamilton

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A Vanity Fair article published late last year writes on the relationship between playwright, Arthur Miller and his son, Daniel Miller who was born with Down Syndrome. Daniel was born in 1966 and institutionalized one week after being born and apparently while other family members kept in touch with Daniel, Miller rarely visited him or spoke of him.

When Miller died in February 2005, very few people knew of Daniel’s existence. Only one obituary notice mentioned Daniel and Miller’s own memoirs include no mention of Daniel.

Six weeks before his death, Miller made Daniel a full and direct heir equal to his other three children. While Daniel is not mentioned in the Will directly; separate trust documents, created the same day and sealed from public view, make Daniel an equal heir to Miller’s estate.

The article speculates that this was likely done contrary to legal advice as Miller’s bequest makes Daniel too wealthy to receive government assistance and a special trust was not created that would allow Daniel to inherit from the estate and continue to receive government assistance. In fact, Connecticut’s Department of Administrative Services issued a reimbursement claim to the estate for Daniel’s care since infancy and the estate is settling the claim.

Miller’s relationship with Daniel was complex and only Miller would be able to answer as to why he decided to make Daniel, who he did not publically acknowledge during his lifetime,an equal heir to his estate.

Until tomorrow,

Diane Vieira

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I recently came across two entertaining and informative blogs about practice management for lawyers and law firms.

David Bilinsky is a practice management advisor and staff lawyer with the Law Society of British Columbia. He writes and lectures on the subject of legal practice management and his blog,  http://thoughtfullaw.com covers topics such as record management, technology, and law firm strategies.

This month, he wrote a series a blogs on the security of electronic documents that many lawyers will be interested in reading.

Allison Wolf's insightful blog, www.thelawyercoach.com, discusses business development and legal marketing ideas for lawyers. Wolf, the founder of her own company that coaches lawyers on business development, offers her advice and links to the most recent articles on this subject.

Both blogs also comment frequently on personal development of lawyers and what lawyers can do to renew themselves and their legal practices.

Thanks for reading,

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Following up on Allan Socken’s blog of March 31, 2008 entitled “What is Legacy Coaching”, I came across an article in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel Journal entitled “Is Your (Ethical) Will in Order?” (2008) 33 ACTEC Journal 154 by Zoe Hicks. In her article, the author reviews what an Ethical Will is, what types of topics are normally covered, the format of the Ethical Will, and how estate planning practitioners have embraced the concept of advising clients with respect to leaving an Ethical Will.

Essentially, an Ethical Will is a testament of what you want your survivors to know, rather than what material assets you want them to have. Ethical Wills can include expressions of wisdom, values and beliefs of the “testator”, reminders of heritage, apologies, explanations of actions taken or not taken, regrets, expressions of love and gratitude, and words of encouragement.

Ms. Hicks sets out numerous extracts from Ethical Wills so that the reader can get a flavour of the types of matters that an Ethical Will can to address. She concludes by observing that an Ethical Will can be a valuable exercise for both the writer and the recipient.

For more information, read her article, or visit www.ethicalwill.com. This site explains the concept, and provides several examples of Ethical Wills in different forms. 

Have a great weekend.

Paul Trudelle

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On April 23, 2008, I attended at the Ontario Bar Association’s Dinner with the Estates Lists Justices.

The evening began with a review of the Case of the Month by Barry Corbin. Barry discussed the Court of Appeal decision of Madore-Ogilvie v. Ogilvie Estate (This case was also discussed by Sean Graham and Rick Bickhram in Hull on Estates, Episode #103.) This case dealt with the inclusion of jointly owned insurance polices as “section 72” assets under the Succession Law Reform Act.

Following Barry’s excellent presentation, Madam Justice Allen, Madam Justice Conway and Mr. Justice Brown took to the dais. They discussed various ways that the bar can work with the bench in order to facilitate the decision-making process, while advocating the client’s position.

Practical tips include organizing the court file, filing meaningful confirmation forms, attending with a working draft of the Order Giving Directions, and filing chronologies and lists of beneficiaries were appropriate.

The importance of filing a Factum was emphasized. These are said to be extremely helpful, and not filing a Factum should be an exception rather than the norm. 

More tomorrow.

Paul Trudelle

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Mom dies, leaving a will that divides her estate among her three sons. The only trouble is that before she died, Mom gave the farm to one of her sons. Accordingly, the other two sons receive nothing upon Mom’s death. 

This fact situation was recently considered by Jenkins J. in Bale v. Bale.

The two disappointed sons were not actively involved in Mom's care. The other son lived with Mom, and helped her extensively. The court found that Mom relied on the one son for her care and well being.

The lawyer on the transfer said that Mom, who was 93, understood the transaction and what she was signing. A doctor confirmed her capacity.

Notwithstanding this capacity, the judge concluded that the relationship between Mom and son was one of dependency. The presumption of undue influence was triggered. Although the court found that Mom had great affection for her one son, this was not sufficient to validate the transfer of the property to him. The court concluded that the transfer of the farm was influenced by Mom’s dependence on the one son. The transfer was set aside.

When considering the value of an estate, one should consider any transfers by the deceased prior to his or her death; particularly where any such transfer might have resulted from undue influence due to a dependency.

Thank you for reading

Paul Trudelle

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In determining whether to litigate, or how far to go with a claim, a paramount consideration must be the costs involved, and the prospect of their recovery or payment.

Recently, I came across a case that highlights the issue. There, a wrongful dismissal matter, the court awarded the employee 2 ½ months’ notice, or $9,166. However, in the costs ruling, the judge noted that the employee’s own costs, according to the employee’s bill of costs, were $14,246. (Actual costs incurred by a client are often in excess of the costs claimed in a bill of costs.) The judge, for various reasons, did not award any costs to any party.

There are a myriad of other examples.

There is also the old joke about the man who said he only went bankrupt twice: once when he lost a lawsuit, and once when he won.

Parties often state that it is the “principle” of the matter that warrants the fight. However, “principles” come with a cost, and this reality must always be kept in mind.

Parties to a piece of litigation must be aware of these costs, and these costs should inform, to a considerable extent, the actions of the parties. Hopefully, all parties will take reasonable approaches in light of the costs of proceeding to court.

This, however, is easier said than done, particularly in the context of estate litigation. Here, emotions are usually close to the surface, and often interfere with reasonable judgment. One of the functions of the litigation lawyer is to attempt to calm these emotions, and to bring a reasoned, objective vision to the table.

Thank you for reading,

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It’s just about tax time, so I thought I would briefly discuss the taxation of executor compensation.

The basic premise is that executor compensation is taxable in the hands of the recipient. It is either income from an office or employment (if the executor is not in the business of being an executor) or income from a business (if the executor is in the business of being an executor, or if such a function is in the executor’s usual course of business). Various consequences flow from the distinction, such as allowable deductions, and withholding requirements for EI and CPP.

CRA takes this obligation to report executor compensation quite seriously. An example of the lengths to which CRA will go is found in the decision of Oolup v. The Queen. There, Ms. Oolup, the executor held a joint account with her grandmother, the deceased. She was advised by her lawyer that upon the death of the deceased, the joint account became hers, by right of survivorship. However, for “reasons of family harmony”, she decided to keep only $10,000 from the joint account, and divided the rest with the deceased’s next of kin.

CRA took the position that the $10,000 was executor compensation, and was therefore taxable, and they assessed Ms. Oolup accordingly. To get to this point, they argued that the joint account was held on a resulting trust for the estate. The CRA argued that the presumption of resulting trust applied, and was not rebutted. Accordingly, they asserted that Ms. Oolup received the $10,000 from the estate, as executor compensation.

Luckily for Ms. Oolup, she was able to rebut the presumption, and the court found that the joint account funds became her property upon the death of the deceased. She received the money by right of survivorship. Therefore, her keeping $10,000 was not receipt of compensation by her, and was not to be included in her income.

Thank you for reading,

Paul Trudelle

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Once in a blue moon I find myself considering and marveling at the genius and breadth of the Common Law.  I am amazed by the Common Law’s ability to function effectively in what otherwise appear to be remarkably different parts of the world, particularly in the area of Estates and Trusts.

Of course, this phenomenon is a historical after-effect of the size and reach, particularly in the 17th to and 19th Centuries, of the British Empire.  Military history buffs will know this was largely attributable to the Royal Navy’s increasing dominance over the oceans of the world.  During that time (and before), the Common Law spread from the relatively tiny islands of the UK to vast and diverse areas: from India, Hong Kong, parts of Africa and Singapore to tiny island states in the Caribbean such as Barbados, the list goes on and on.

No doubt Estate Law has its local variants in each location, but I am more often than not struck by the similarities.  The attached article about Wills and Probate in Hong Kong would not be much different in Ontario, and I expect most non-lawyers would be hard-pressed to spot the differences.  Here’s a website encouraging people to outsource legal services to India, including trust deeds, although to my mind that may exaggerate the cross-jurisdictional similarities of Estates law. It seems to me it would still be best to retain a local lawyer in whatever jurisdiction you’re dealing. For the truly exotic, review this website talking about how the governing Estate law in Singapore shifted from the Common Law to Islamic law.

With Canada’s direct reliance on British jurisprudence lasting until 1949 when final appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council were ended, we certainly have played our role in this pattern and continue to do so.

Thanks for reading.

Sean Graham

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By all indications, the abuse of Powers of Attorney to misappropriate assets is on the rise. 

When a grantor gives powers to an attorney to manage the grantor’s property, it allows the attorney to assist the grantor in managing property, and in fact to take over management of property altogether if the grantor does not monitor the situation.  Often the very goal of the grantor is to allow someone else to completely take over management of one’s property due to age, potential incapacity or other reasons, so the grantor has no intention to monitor.

This is often a reasonable choice, and the law holds attorneys to a high standard to protect grantors.  However, the potential for abuse is immense.  Abuse can be willful or simply negligent, but in either case the damage can be devastating and irreversible.  In many cases attorneys who stray from their duties are never made to account, although they have that obligation.  Often they live with the grantor and have little or no oversight.  The legal fees in securing justice are generally high, and the chances of recovering on a judgment can be low.  In the result, legal proceedings might be impractical, however blatant abuse may be in a given case.

The best defence against this problem is awareness, so these varied results from a quick internet search are somewhat encouraging: a Florida law firm website; an excellent Vancouver Sun article; a synopsis of a TV news story; the New York Attorney General’s website; a news report of a Philadelphia trial; and a news release from Prince Edward Island’s provincial government commenting on the problem for World Elder Abuse Day.

This is the tip of a very large iceberg: by all indications lawyers, financial institutions, governments and of course the public will be wrestling with a growing problem for years to come.  

Thanks for reading.

Sean Graham

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Listen to Expert Witnesses and Expert Reports (The Cross Examination).

This week on Hull on Estates, Diane and Craig discuss what to consider when dealing with experts and expert reports in cross examination.

Comments? Send us an email at hull.lawyers@gmail.com, call us on the comment line at 206-350-6636, or leave us a comment on the Hull on Estates blog.

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A massive $110 million lawsuit has been brought by the Attorney General’s office in California against a “living trust mill that tricked senior citizens into using their retirement savings to buy annuities that often made less financial sense for the elderly victims but earned the con artists substantial commissions and other income.”

Estate Planning Law Firms.com quotes the Attorney General as saying the following:

“The perpetrators of this fraud deceived seniors into using their hard-earned retirement nest eggs to buy unneeded annuities that actually undermined their financial security. Living trust mills such as this one violate not only the law, but the trust of their elderly victims.”

What surprised me was the apparent scope of the alleged organization being sued by the Attorney General: between 250 and 300 sales agents and another 80 telemarketers were involved, allegedly soliciting elderly consumers through mailings, seminars, telemarketing, presentations at senior centers and other means, marketing their services as a way to avoid probate and estate taxes, then eventually convincing seniors to buy annuities that were, according to the Attorney General, not in their best interest.

Without commenting on this particular case, there does seem to have been a disturbing and growing trend in recent years of attempts to deprive the elderly of the considerable wealth concentrated in their hands.  

One more reason, if any were needed, to take great care in choosing investment and estate planning advisors.

Thanks for reading.

Sean Graham

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An interesting excerpt from Diane Francis’s new book Who Owns Canada Now? was published in Saturday’s National Post and touches in some detail on offshore trusts as a mechanism to avoid Canadian taxes.

Aside from briefly lamenting my non-mention in a book chronicling Canada’s wealthiest, I was struck by the contradiction in the apparent approaches of different wealthy Canadians to the opportunity to avoid taxes. According to Ms. Francis, one common tax avoidance mechanism involves settling assets in an offshore trust, apparently becoming a fairly common option for the wealthy. It seems to require spending six months of the year out of the country, something I doubt many Canadians would baulk at after the dreadful winter we’ve just suffered through.

What really struck me about the article were the quotes from wealthy Canadians who refuse to avail themselves of this option on the basis that as Canadian citizens who became wealthy in Canada, they should pay Canadian taxes and not shelter assets.

Here’s hoping I face this touchy dilemma myself – the sooner the better!

At any rate, an interesting article offering a good précis of both sides of the issue and much food for thought.

It will be even more interesting if these trusts begin to be litigated. Certainly English jurisprudence seems to deal with them often, if only because the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council continues to take appeal cases from the Courts of former British colonies.

Thanks for reading.

Sean Graham

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