Our team of wills and estates lawyers counsel individuals, families, and fiduciaries on all aspects of: estate and business succession planning, including cross-border planning; estate and trust administration; and estate and trust disputes.
Our customized counsel results in long-term protection and certainty. For individuals, families, and family-owned business entities, our lawyers create valuable strategies to minimize tax liability and prevent conflict and we can also help you protect, bequest and transfer your personal and business assets.
Our estate administration services include preparing all necessary documentation for executors and trustees seeking probate (in Ontario referred to as a certificate of appointment of estate trustee) and assisting such executors and trustees in the effective administration of estates and/or trusts and the passing of their accounts.
You wish to tax-efficiently transfer wealth and otherwise meet your personal estate planning goals. To that end, we provide advice and prepare sophisticated wills and trusts. We work with appropriate professionals and advise on the use of life insurance. We advise and prepare documentation to implement estate freezes and other income splitting opportunities.
Recognizing the increasingly mobile and global world in which we live, we also provide advice regarding cross-border and other international “problem” estates, again consulting with competent counsel in other relevant jurisdictions. Our knowledgeable practitioners can assist you in all aspects of will and estate planning to ensure that your affairs are handled properly.
We advise clients on and prepare powers of attorney for both the management of property and personal care. We also provide advice with respect to guardianship applications where an individual becomes incapacitated without having first prepared powers of attorney. Our services include advising family members in dispute over the care of an incapacitated loved one and the management of his/her financial affairs.
Even after one’s death, it may be possible to minimize the taxes owing as a consequence thereof. We assist the executors, trustees and beneficiaries of estates to minimize or defer such taxes.
We advise our clients on the use of wills, trusts and other techniques to defer and/or minimize estate administration tax.
A lifetime of your work and dedication has gone into your family business. Generations before you may have helped build the business, and you wish that generations after you will benefit from these efforts. A successful inter-generational transfer of your family owned business requires an individualized strategy and a sensitive approach. Balancing continued growth and success of the business with the expectations of other stakeholders and family members requires the vision of experienced professional advisers.
Our experienced lawyers often act as advisors to family councils designed or established to promote effective communication to and with two or more generations of entrepreneurs. We team our corporate advisors with our estate and tax planning professionals to ensure fairness, efficiency, business success and family harmony.
