Learning from experience
Estate planning is crucial to ensure your assets continue on to your chosen beneficiaries and that arrangements are made to care for your children if you die. For new Canadians living in British Columbia, this process can be even more complicated.
Losing a loved one is often a painful and challenging experience. Dealing with the legal implications of their passing can add immense stress to the situation. This is particularly the case when the person who passed away has no will, a situation called intestacy.
One of the issues that comes up often in my practice is how to choose an executor. People usually turn to trusted friends or family members to take on this responsibility, but sometimes people don’t have someone they trust or those they do trust are unsuitable (or unwilling) to be an executor.
As a wills and estate lawyer, I often have clients who want to do their estate planning, but don’t want to spend the money on everything I recommend. Fair enough. Money can be tight and planning your beneficiaries is something that a lot of people feel they can push off.
As the Baby Boomer generation ages and passes on their accumulated wealth, what some are calling the ‘biggest wealth transfer in history’ is underway.
A nightmare for parents: what happens if they pass away before their children are grown and capable of caring for themselves? While nothing can replace a mother or father, addressing this concern is one of the most important reasons to prepare a will.
In a traditional law practice, someone looking to retain a lawyer would go into that lawyer’s office, meet with them and, if happy with that lawyer, retain them to provide services. This model hasn’t changed much for the last few centuries.
Planning for the future and ensuring your loved ones are taken care of is an important responsibility. It can also be stressful and time consuming. Online wills have emerged as a convenient and accessible tool that does away with some of the barriers of traditional estate planning.
What do you do if a loved one becomes unable to care for themselves or unable to manage their lives?
BC became the first Canadian province to allow its residents to sign, witness and store their Wills online.
