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

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Listen to Madore-Ogilvie vs. Ogilvie Estate.

This week on Hull on Estates, Rick and Sean discuss the case of Madore-Ogilvie vs. Ogilvie Estate which was recently featured in the CCH periodical Will Power.

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.

Madore-Ogilvie vs. Ogilvie - Hull on Estates Podcast #103

Posted on March 25^th, 2008 by Hull & Hull LLP

 

Rick Bickhram: Hi and welcome to Hull on Estates. You are listening to Episode #103 of our podcast on March 25^th, 2008.

 

Welcome to Hull on Estates, a series of podcasts for the Canadian legal community dealing with issues and insights surrounding estate planning in Canada.   Hosted by the lawyers of Hull & Hull, the podcast will touch on some key considerations when planning estates and Wills.  Now, here are today’s hosts.

 

Rick Bickhram: Hi it’s Rick Bickhram here today. And I’m podcasting with Sean Graham.

 

Sean Graham: Hi Rick, how’s it going?

 

Rick Bickhram: I’m doing well, how are you doing today Sean?

 

Sean Graham: Pretty good thanks, pretty good. We figured we’d refer to a great resource we get that people out there probably know fairly well if they’re in the area. But in case they don’t, it’s certainly worth a read every once in awhile. It’s the CCH Will Power Periodical Resource and we get it obviously through the firm and it’s really a great resource for us. It provides pretty helpful summaries, I find, of recent cases, tax rulings.  And the thing I like the most about it, I think, is that it often refers to Quebec cases which we don’t come across that often, but it’s kind of a novelty, for me anyway, to read the cases and to see the analysis and the references to the Civil Code of Quebec and just to sort of see how the reasoning seems to go in these Civil Code cases. It’s a nice sort of distraction almost from the cases we’re used to seeing.

 

And there’s one case referred to in the most recent edition which is the March 2008 edition, it’s #159. It’s about the Madore-Ogilvie vs. Ogilvie Estate case which is an Ontario Court of Appeal case. Maybe, Rick, if you want to chat about the facts a bit?

 

Rick Bickhram: Absolutely. This is an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that the CCH edition discusses and it takes us back, a little bit back towards the Superior Court decision, and I’m just going to run through the facts here very briefly. The deceased here had six children, three of which were minors. Now the three minors, of the three minors, two of the minors were from a different mother and one minor was with Mary, who was the deceased’s wife. The deceased died and his estate was consumed with debts except for two life insurance policies. One of the life insurance policies was owned by the deceased solely and another life insurance policy was owned jointly between the deceased and his wife Mary. Now it was pretty much agreed between the parties that the first life insurance policy that was owned by Lloyd – or the deceased – was deemed to be part of his estate. Whereas the other life insurance policy that was owned jointly between the deceased and his wife Mary, there was some debate in regards to whether or not that a life insurance policy constituted or could be deemed part of his estate.

 

Sean Graham: And I think it’s that old Section 72 analysis where the estate can be, sort of, broadened by including Section 72 from the Succession Law Reform Act. It’s a list of assets which fall outside the estate, as regular listeners will probably be aware of, but what happens is in these dependant’s relief claims, the Section 72 assets can be clawed back into the estate by the Court for the purpose of satisfying the dependant’s relief claims. And so the issue in this decision was should this particular asset be clawed back? It’s kind of an interesting one because it sets a joint policy which arguably falls under the definition but the Court noted that the intent of the whole policy was to pay down the mortgage on the matrimonial home. And the Court also noted that Mary, the surviving spouse, had made the majority and maybe even all of the policy payments. So you have to think that those facts figure in to the eventual decision.

 

I don’t know about you, Rick, but I’m finding these days that it seems like a lot of estate planning is taking into account these dependant’s relief claims or other claims against the estate.  And so a lot of times, I’m finding that the estate has been well planned to avoid claims because a lot of assets have passed outside the estate. So clawing them back with Section 72 seems to be an increasingly necessary option.

 

Rick Bickhram: Absolutely. And what makes this decision a little bit more interesting is that in the applications in the initial decision to claw the insurance policy back, the Divisional Court took the reverse position. They said that the insurance policy should not be clawed back such that it would be constituted part of the estate for valuing the estate in lieu of a dependant relief’s claim.

 

Sean Graham: Yeah, it’s kind of neat. At the trial level, the trial judge felt that the policy clearly fell under the language of Section 72 of the Act and basically, literally applied the Act and found that the policy should be clawed back. But then at the Appellate levels, both Divisional and Appeal Court, reversed that. And it’s sort of an interesting reasoning and I think it’s going to lead to some more cases in this area.  And I suspect that the cases are going to be fairly fact-based in terms of who contributed to the asset, because in this case, it was Mary, the surviving spouse, and other facts, I think, are going to come into it. So we may be… maybe, anyway, according to this case, moving from a rigid enforcement of the Section 72 language, and maybe branching out to some more areas for consideration as to whether these assets should fall into the estate, even if they’re clearly under the language of the Act. So I think that’s an interesting one to watch.

 

Rick Bickhram: Well, this was an interesting decision in the Court of Appeal decision. And I think it’s interesting in the sense that the Court of Appeal held that this insurance policy that was jointly owned between the deceased and his wife Mary didn’t fall within the language of the Succession Law Reform Act, Section 72, which is used normally to claw back assets into the estate and deems it part of the estate for the purpose of the valuation.

 

Sean Graham: Yeah and that’s a little – I mean I was, sort of, reading it from the point of view of thinking that it did fall under the… that the asset in this case did appear to fall under the language.  But the Court of Appeal has an interesting twist on that. It basically said that the deceased in this case did not own the policy because there was an ownership interest of the surviving spouse as well, which became an absolute entitlement to the proceeds when the deceased died. Now that’s always the case with a joint asset, in theory and a lot of those are clawed back. But the Court of Appeal really looked at the language of Section 72 a little closer.  And in particular, juxtaposed the language of Section 72, sub (1), sub (e) and sub (c) and (d), which talk about jointly owned bank accounts and property. And then the insurance policy sub-section though, 72, sub (1), sub (f) talks about insurance policies owned by the deceased. So those other two sections would capture joint assets but they don’t really talk about insurance policies, and I think there’s the distinction. So that this asset, in this case, was an insurance policy and so 72, sub (1), sub (f) has a different mechanism.  And it looks as though that was really the deciding factor, which meant that this particular asset fell outside of the estate, went to the surviving spouse and that was the end of that case.

 

I’d also note that the Court of Appeal has some specific discussions saying that this policy was not some sort of arrangement to avoid the dependants and I think that’s pretty important. I think that’s a factual determiner in some of these cases. I think the Court will really look at intent as much as possible and try to make sure that the intent did not try to get around the statute, and in this case it didn’t. The language of the Act was Section 72, sub (1), sub (f) of the Succession Law Reform Act and so it wasn’t the pure joint assets section.  And on that basis, the asset went straight to the surviving spouse. I think it’s an interesting case and I do think that some of the underlying rationale is going to come back. It seems to me, at least in my practice, that the Section 72 assets are becoming a real driving force in these dependant’s relief claims.

 

Rick Bickhram: Well that was definitely a really good review and insight from Sean about that case.  And also from CCH, which provided the summary of this case, which is really well put together.

 

Sean Graham: Yeah, I think Will Power is a great resource. Again, I really do like the sort of broad scope a bit. You get a bit of tax, a bit of Quebec cases, cases from B.C. and so forth and it’s all very, sort of, readable. The summaries are very well written and I’d certainly recommend to anyone that they look into it again. That’s CCH and that’s the Will Power Resource. Certainly worth the read.

 

Okay, well thanks, Rick. I think that brings us to the end of today’s talk. Thanks to everyone for listening and obviously we love hearing from listeners. You can send us an e-mail at hull.lawyers@gmail.com or just give us a shout at our telephone number. We have a comment line at 206-350-6636 and, of course, we’d love for you to visit our blog at estatelaw.hullandhull.com. And you’ll find lots of information, discussions on the growing and developing practice of estate law.

 

Rick Bickhram: It was a pleasure podcasting with you, Sean. I look forward to podcasting with you in the future.

 

Sean Graham: Hope you enjoyed the show. I’m Sean Graham.

 

Rick Bickhram: And I’m Rick Bickhram. Until next week, so long.

 

This has been Hull on Estates with the lawyers of Hull & Hull.  The podcast you have been listening to has been provided as an information service.  It is a summary of current legal issues in estates and estate planning.  It is not legal advice and you are reminded to always talk with a legal professional regarding your specific circumstances.

 

To listen to other podcasts, or to leave a question or comment, please visit our website at www.hullandhull.com.

 

Our theme music is Upper Structure by DJ AKid  and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.

 

/mem

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Listen to Asset Particulars

This week on Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, Ian and Suzana talk about the importance of keeping track of asset details.

Comments? Send us an email at hullandhull@gmail.com, call us on the comment line at 206-457-1985, or leave us a comment on the Hull on Estate and Succession Planning blog.

 

Asset Particulars - Hull on Estate and Succession Planning Podcast #98

Posted on February 5^th, 2008 by Hull & Hull LLP

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Hi, and welcome to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning.  You’re listening to Episode #98 of our podcast on Tuesday, February 5^th, 2008.

 

Welcome to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, a series of podcasts hosted by

Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag, that will provide information and insights into estate planning in Canada, from the offices of Hull Estate Mediation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Here are Ian and Suzana.

 

Ian Hull: Hi Suzana.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Hi there Ian, how are you today?

 

Ian Hull: I’m just great.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s good.

 

Ian Hull: So just as a reminder, we have set up easy to get access to our daily podcasts and blogs. Go to hullandhull.com for that, but we’ve also set up a call-in line.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And what we’re hoping to do is to hear from you there at area code 206-457-1985.

 

Ian Hull: So we encourage it and hopefully we’ll get some people interacting in this over the weeks to come.

 

Now we’ve been working through and looking at questions of really, estate administration techniques that we can help assist our lawyers and assist ourselves in the process of trying to work through an estate administration. And of our checklist or things to do in getting things organized before we pass away, one of the things that I keep harping on is trying to keep a running total of your assets and so on. But let’s spend some time today talking about particulars of what we want to have on that list.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: One of the things that I certainly encourage people to keep a list of, Ian, is their insurance policies. Things like insurance on their vehicles, on their home, on their personal belongings, so that these things are put into one place or are easily accessible or at least, you know, you have an opportunity to know that you’ve found everything that you’re actually looking for.

 

Ian Hull: And that… can be very important. One of the things that people forget is that just because you paid the premium doesn’t mean that the insurance company is going to pay the claim. And you need the policy. This is particularly important with life insurance as well. It’s best to have the policies located in one single spot or easily found in some way, shape or form so that it takes a lot of the burden off your executor when the time comes that they have to move quickly. For example, if you’ve got a car and you don’t know whether or not it’s insured, that’s going to be an urgent issue that you have to deal with.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And certainly when you’ve got real estate, there are situations where the death of the owner of the insurance policy is going to affect whether or not that insurance company will continue to insure that asset. And so you want to make sure that if there is the requirement for some vacancy permit or something like that, that the insurance company is notified of the change in circumstances so that the insurance does continue to be effective.

 

Ian Hull: One of the questions that people often ask is, “What do we do with the house now that it is unoccupied if the person has passed away?” And it’s a case-by-case answer and it depends on almost every situation. It depends on the insurance company itself but typically what an insurance company will say is, ‘we don’t want to continue to insure a house that is vacant except if you’ – and then this is where it is case-by-case – ‘except if it is properly being monitored.’ And they’ll often say, ‘we want to make sure there’s first of all there’s maybe a security system in place.’ Another idea that often they say is, is that you guarantee that you’ll check it every day. That way you can preserve the property in the interim while you’re going to get it ready for sale or distribution to the beneficiary but at the same time keep it well insured.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And just in terms of being well insured, I think that just sort of tweaks me to the fact that if the personalty, or the things that are within the house, that are valuable had otherwise been included in the value of the home for the purposes of insurance and now those things are no longer there, then you want to make sure that what you do have in place is adequate insurance for the house.

 

Ian Hull: Okay.  So let’s talk just more about this real estate and how…we’ve talked about the insurance aspect…but how we deal with real estate generally.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And what I think of in these situations when we’re dealing with a piece of property is the real estate taxes that are either outstanding up until the date of death or will have to be paid on a go forward basis.

 

Ian Hull: And then, as you say, the contents of the house and the valuables and so on, you’ll want to make sure they’re well insured. But you also need to take control and custody over them in some way, shape or form. And so what I often tell my clients is that…go through the house and bring a video camera and video everything in the house - every room, every piece of furniture - so that at the other end of the day if someone says, “Geez, you know I used to have a beautiful chest of drawers in that room and it’s gone,” you have an answer to say, “No it isn’t, it never was there because here’s the video that I took the day after I got the job of being an  executor.” It’s a trick that you can get trapped and you can get caught into and a nice answer to it is if you have the evidence in response to it.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And that’s so much easier than the suggestion to go and make a handwritten list, for instance, and helps with the identification too, so I think that’s a fantastic suggestion.

 

Ian Hull: One of the things that you really struggle with, I think, in the whole management of the real estate is when they’re in a commercial or semi-commercial, and I call that semi-commercial as a residential landlord situation. Or commercial landlord situation. What early action steps need to be taken?

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Well, in those situations, Ian, I think it’s always recommendable to look for the lease, to review its terms and to see about contacting the tenants so that in terms of going forward and collecting rent and making any re-direction of payments that are necessary, that you can do that by having this documentation firstly in hand and secondly understand what it provides for.

 

Ian Hull: And as with any piece of real estate, you want to know what encumbrances are on the property.  For example, a mortgage, sometimes the mortgage is mortgage insured. But if it’s not mortgage insured, you want to look at the terms because some financial institutions might be prepared to re-negotiate the mortgage because the person’s passed away. You might be able to get more favorable terms and so forth. Now that’s all good news, but it’s also probably expected of you as an executor to look into that level of business expertise.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And when we started this series of podcasts, Ian, we talked about, you know, executors doing their homework.  But this is another illustration of those kinds of things that we’re hoping that people will do during their lifetime in terms of, you know, getting insurance documentation together, getting information about real estate together and here now rental property or leases or mortgages, that kind of stuff. If it’s all together, it certainly will help your executor at the end of the day.

 

Ian Hull: So Suzana, what happens if the deceased was renting a property, say renting a condominium or an apartment building unit?

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Well, one of the first things that you’d want to do is to contact the landlord and advise them of the fact that the tenant has now passed away and see how you would go about either cancelling the lease and providing vacant premises or otherwise dealing with the interim period until decisions are made as to how to go on.

 

Ian Hull: And I guess in the right circumstance, you might even want to look at subletting if you can’t get out of the lease arrangements that they were in.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s probably a really good suggestion.

 

Ian Hull: Okay. This is a bit of a loaded question and we’ll spend more time in future podcasts on this as well, but what do you do if you have an ongoing business?

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Well that really is, as you say, a loaded gun because that’s not something that you can just quickly cancel and put aside and deal with on a rainy day. You actually have to arrange for the continuity and I’d say competent management of the business in the meantime until either you distribute it pursuant to the terms of the Will or you continue to manage it in accordance with the terms of the Will

 

Ian Hull: And without getting into too much detail in this podcast, you’re right, I mean it’s such a loaded question.  But, you know, in the course of the continuity and creating a competent management team, you probably want to meet with them and create some sort of short term plan of action as to how you’re going to operate the business.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s for sure. And you may also want to review if there’s any buy/sell agreements that are in place, shareholder’s agreements or those kinds of corporate documentation that may provide for how to deal with the situation in the meantime.

 

Ian Hull: Okay. We are now inching toward that fateful moment of getting probate and we’re not quite there.  But one of the first steps that we want to make sure we’ve got under control is opening an estate bank account. Coincidentally I’m on my way after this podcast to go close a bank account which is full circle on an estate administration. But in this case, we want to be mindful of what’s going to be necessary and:

 

1. Is opening a bank account necessary? and
2. What are some of the steps we’re going to have to take in that regard?

 

Now what I often will do is I will send a letter to the bank just advising them, because I don’t have probate. They’ll want probate before they’ll actually open the bank account typically, but I don’t have probate in hand.  But I’ll write them and say, “Look, I’m the executor, here’s a notarial copy of the Will. I look forward to seeing you, my face is now on this file, not the deceased’s.” And it softens the bank up and it gets it ready to sort of deal with an account that is not normal anymore. or is not being dealt with by someone who’s alive. And I send that same to the financial institutions as well, sort of priming everybody to know that I’m coming down the pipe. I don’t have probate.  I’m applying for probate, or if I’m not, in the right circumstances. But typically you’re going to be applying for probate if you’re going to need to get money out of financial institutions. So I’ll just make it clear that I’m applying for probate and you can expect to hear from me shortly. This letter actually does take the account out of the mainstream of the bank operations and flags it in some meaningful way so that they’re going to be ready for you when you get your probate application. It doesn’t take much time and it’s a helpful step

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: I think it also helps, Ian, in the event that the account is somehow held jointly with another to put the bank on notice of the fact that one of the joint account owners is no longer alive and there may be consequences that arise from that, if it’s not clearly a, you know, right of survivorship kind of situation.

 

Ian Hull: Okay. So finally, just because again I’m coincidentally on my way to go do this as well, is the locating and cleaning out the safety deposit box. An important step and again one that you want to document very carefully. I will often just take notes of what I have taken out of the box or make an inventory as soon as I’ve emptied the box, back at the office, of everything that I’ve taken out. Sometimes I’ll even video that moment in time.  That’s not always the case. But you want to make sure that you keep the custody of the documents and whatever is in the safety deposit box under tight reign and control.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Well I think that brings us to the end of this week’s discussion. Thanks very much to all of our listeners for joining us and thank you for joining me today, Ian.

 

Ian Hull: Thanks very much Suzana. And again, don’t forget to come to our webpage at hullandhull.com and you can link into our daily blog.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And we hope to have a little bit of interaction with the comments from the people who are listening and any comments, questions they might have we’d look forward to receiving them.

 

Ian Hull: So for that number again 206-457-1985. Thanks so much.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Thank you.

 

You’ve been listening to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning with Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag.  The podcast you have been listening to has been provided as an information service.  It is a summary of current legal issues in estates and estate planning.  It is not legal advice and you are reminded to always talk with a legal professional regarding your specific circumstances.

 

To listen to other Hull On podcasts, or to leave a question or comment, please visit our website at www.hullestatemediation.com.

 

Our theme music is UpTempo14 by Gary and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.

 

/mem

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Listen to Funeral Considerations

This week on Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, Ian and Suzana discuss the considerations and responsibilities of estate trustees at the time of a funeral.

They also introduce Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Tipping Point' as a different way of understanding family behaviour at the time of death.

Funeral Considerations - Hull on Estate and Succession Planning Podcast #95

Posted on January 15^th, 2008 by Hull & Hull LLP

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Hi, and welcome to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning.  You’re listening to Episode #95 of our podcast on Tuesday, January 15^th, 2008.

 

Welcome to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, a series of podcasts hosted by

Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag, that will provide information and insights into estate planning in Canada, from the offices of Hull Estate Mediation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Here are Ian and Suzana.

 

Ian Hull:  Hi Suzana.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Hi there Ian, how are you?

 

Ian Hull:  I’m okay.  I don’t know if I have a bit of a cold.  I’m a little out of kilter today but I’ll hopefully get through the podcast.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Now I have to ask you, at the end of our last podcast, you were talking about your New Year’s resolution.  I’m just wondering how that’s coming along one week later now?

 

Ian Hull:  My resolution not to drink before noon.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Yes, that would be the one.

 

Ian Hull:  Yeah.  I’ve managed to go 4 days straight without doing it so…

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  That’s great.

 

Ian Hull:  No, it’s been good.  It was a long time ago since the holidays but it was a great holiday and I know you and your family got up skiing and so did we, so that was a nice break.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  It was, now with the weather being the way it is though, we just hope it holds out for the rest of the winter.

 

Ian Hull:  Yeah, no kidding.  It’s been a strange winter for that here in Toronto.

 

What we thought we’d go through today is…maybe none of these topics are particularly necessarily happy topics but we’re in the business of death and we can’t avoid that.  So we’re trying to work through and bring to life, so to speak, some of the mechanical expectations and the practical expectations that one faces when they get the job as a trustee and executor.  And so we talked briefly, and actually in our last few podcasts, we keep touching on this topic.  So I want to sort of close the loop on this one aspect of it.  And that is the whole question of the funeral.  And to most people, this can be a pretty daunting task if you are the executor or you expect to be the executor.  So why don’t we spend some time talking a little bit about that.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  That’s a good idea, Ian.  And we know typically that estate trustees or executors, whatever the term that you want to use, are responsible for making the funeral arrangements.  And they are the ones who have the authority to make the decisions concerning how an individual is ultimately laid to rest.  And the reality is, though, that so many times upon a death, there is such a hustle and bustle that occurs, the family gets involved and these arrangements can be made even before a Will is actually found, if there is in fact a Will.

 

Ian Hull:  And as we’ve said in the past, don’t forget that the Will speaks from death, so the authority question really shouldn’t be in doubt, except in special circumstances where there might be other Wills.  One of the things from a practical standpoint, we don’t profess to sell life insurance but we keep talking about encouraging people to buy life insurance for some estate planning needs.  The other thing I do not profess to do is sell pre-purchased funeral arrangements but having said that, having been involved in these kinds of cases for so many years, those who do take advantage of that product that’s out there, and that is, sort of buying up the service before you die (a) there’s a financial benefit to it and (b) it really does take some pressure off the family.  So you may want to look into making those arrangements as necessary before you pass away unless you want to pass that on to the executor.

 

One of the questions that many people face for those who haven’t prepaid for the funeral, is how am I going to pay for this?  They walk into the funeral home, they realize, I mean lots of funerals are anywhere between $15,000 - $30,000 in terms of once you’ve had a reception after and so on.  And, you know, a lot of people don’t have that money just sitting around in the bank.  What do we do about that situation?

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  And I guess, Ian, this is still in the pre-probate stage when we’re talking about these arrangements being made because someone has just passed away and probate hasn’t been sought yet.  And we say typically that the Will is the authority for things to be done by an executor.  But in these situations, we typically find that banks will make an exception, so to say, in order to provide the funds for the payment of a funeral account.  And so if you’ve got a Will with an appointment that names an executor, you’ve got an account for a funeral bill, then typically you’ll see that the banks will make arrangements to pay this even without the benefit of probate.

 

Ian Hull:  Okay.  Another important question is the stone itself. 

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  That’s right.  The memorial stone and what I think that people want to consider is making arrangements for the purchase of that, if that’s something that would be applicable in the circumstances.  And again, you know, you want to arrange for the payment of that afterwards and again, the banks are willing to facilitate the payment of those kinds of expenses even without probate.

 

Ian Hull:  And I don’t…I tell my clients not to underestimate the emotional aspects of these two things.  One is making the funeral arrangements and two is actually arranging for the stone.  Unfortunately, on both of those fronts, we are involved with contentious estate administrations where there’s a fight over what’s going to be put on the stone, what size the lettering will be for who, what names are on there and so on.  So again, I mean these are things that if you want, you can sort of deal with before you die.  But if you don’t want to deal with it before you die, make sure you’ve maybe given some direction to your executor or you’ve picked an executor who is strong and is prepared to take on that courageous task, in some cases.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Because we can’t forget that these are really emotional times for family members.  And so there are flashpoints that you wouldn’t even be able to predict or expect, but the reality is these things happen.  So to the extent you can try to facilitate that in advance, I think that can only help.

 

Ian Hull:  A couple of little procedural questions that come up.  One is the importance of getting the funeral director’s Proof of Death Certificate.  It is such a vital document at the early pre-probate stage.  And you should make those arrangements quickly and get that organized.  Typically you’ll want to get several copies from the funeral director itself.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  The other thing you’ll want to consider possibly also is obtaining the provincial Death Certificate which you will need probably in circumstances when you’re looking to cash out proceeds of life insurance and those kinds of assets that were previously owned by the individual.

 

Ian Hull:  So you can see a lawyer too, to just get extra copies of these in what we call notarial form, if necessary.  I apologize as we go along here because my cold is not getting better but getting worse as we talk.  Alright, there are some aspects to…sort of some technical aspects to getting these certificates and getting the Death Certificate and so on.  And again, if you’re running into trouble in the right situation, you really should spend the time and effort to get to see a lawyer quickly on this, because there are ways to expedite the certificates if needed, there are ways to deal with the funeral directors and so on.  And these issues can be fairly pressing in situations where sometimes you want to release funds such as insurance proceeds.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  I think, Ian, that basically sort of ties together with the thoughts that we had on funeral arrangements that are made in these situations.  And I thought it might be a good point to talk a little bit about this great theory that you’ve been telling me about recently and you’ve been speaking to a lot of people about, the Tipping Point theory.  Can you tell us a bit about that?

 

Ian Hull:  Sure, and I think what we’ve, when we were, Suzana and I were sitting down assessing our 2008 plan of action for our podcasts, we thought we’d try to interject from time to time some additional aspects.  A big part of social media is trying to discuss and deal with and obviously download information to the extent that we can that’s helpful to people who are interested in our topic area, that being estates.  But a big part of the social media revolution and what makes podcasting so exciting, and blogging as well, is trying to sort of incorporate what’s going on out there as well.  And so we wanted to add a quick segment to today’s podcast, on a book that I’d been reading over the Christmas holiday and really enjoyed, and I thought was something that was worth discussing because it does tie in to many of our life moments.  And we see in the estates world the tipping point, and that tipping point sometimes is, of course, the triggering of death.  Now, The Tipping Point is a book that we’re going to get into in more detail on our next podcast.  But it’s a New York Times Best Seller book out there right now, and I’ve been reading it and enjoying it.  But it’s that magic moment…they describe it as that magic moment when an idea or a trend or a social behaviour crosses the threshold, tips and sort of spreads like wildfire.  Now what was interesting to me was that the tipping point in many estates, whether they get contentious or non-contentious, but obviously most often contentious, is death can be a tipping point.  And the issues of emotions and sort of illogical behaviour maybe on the part of some of the family members and so on, spread like wildfire in many situations.  So I’ve been enjoying this book, The Tipping Point, and I thought we could spend a couple of minutes and talk about what their analysis is, understand what the tipping point is, which I’ve just defined it, then talk a little bit about what the tipping point means and how we can identify a tipping point, because then we can start to maybe help manage the wildfire that sometimes gets created when the obvious tipping point of death hits in our world.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  I think that’s the great thing about the title of this book, Ian, and the whole concept of it.  It just seems to transcend so many different areas.  It’s not just a business philosophy.  It’s not…you can bring it into the estates context.  And it seems that it can apply in almost any situation.

 

Ian Hull:  I agree.  And I mean that’s why, when I looked at the definition in the back of the book, it described it.  You know, it talks about social behaviour crossing the threshold and then spreading like wildfire.  And most people see their family in a relatively dysfunctional framework, but while everyone is alive.  But everybody sort of lives with it.  But when the glue starts to come undone and the tipping point hits when one or more of the, sort of, heads of the family pass away, this spreading like wildfire I think is something that we have to…and we focus so many of our podcasts on…try to manage.  And so let’s spend a few minutes just talking about what that wildfire is all about.

 

And in the book, what they talk about was the classic…an example that they started off with was with the Hushpuppy Shoes.  And this is an American brand, it’s sort of a brushed suede shoe that when I was a kid, I used to wear them.  But in the mid 90’s, it became…it hit the tipping point.  And the illustration here was…this is a business illustration…was the brand was just all but dead, there was about 30,000 pairs a year that were being sold and then something happened. 

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  And that something was some kid suddenly in Soho, who thought that they were a little bit different or little bit unique, they started to wear them in New York.

 

Ian Hull:  And so these kids got picked up…this trend started to get picked up by local designers in the Soho, New York City area.  And eventually from 30,000 sales in 1994, it went to 430,000 in 1995.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  And so then what happened is that the idea was that the shoes had suddenly passed this certain point of popularity and then they tipped.  They sort of hit that point where they just, you know, they hit the jackpot, so to speak.

 

Ian Hull:  So this was an example and we wanted to sort of set that up in this podcast, because we’re going to work through this example and this concept.  But we’ll keep the Hushpuppy concept in mind as we go through it because it is an example of where a social phenomenon tipped and the book spends a lot of time using it, and many other examples, in showing why it tipped, what happened, what went on and so forth.  And another example we’re going to talk a little bit is about some historic moments in time where things changed and affected the American society strongly throughout the book, is analyzed.  So anyway, it’s a good…it’s a fun book.  I think it’s a telling book in our area even, and I think it also gives people an idea of a little bit about what’s out there beyond just our sphere of estate world.  I think it talks about social behaviour in a way and an understanding that can be very helpful.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  So if anyone is interested in following up and looking at the book itself, we’ll put a reference to it in our show notes and we’ll look forward to our next podcast, Ian.

 

Ian Hull:  Thanks so much, Suzana.

 

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Thanks to you.

 

You’ve been listening to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning with Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag.  The podcast you have been listening to has been provided as an information service.  It is a summary of current legal issues in estates and estate planning.  It is not legal advice and you are reminded to always talk with a legal professional regarding your specific circumstances.

 

To listen to other Hull On podcasts, or to leave a question or comment, please visit our website at www.hullestatemediation.com.

 

Our theme music is UpTempo14 by Gary and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.

 

/mem