One of the most important features of a joint tenancy is the right of survivorship. The right of survivorship means that when one of the owners dies, his or her interest in the property passes to the other named owner. To avoid this result and have an ownership interest pass to an estate, the joint tenancy must be severed so that each ownership interest is converted to a tenancy in common.
In D’Angelo Estate, Re, the Court held that it had jurisdiction to appoint a monitor to supervise the actions of the co-executors and ensure that the Estate was properly administered. Justice Quinn relied on the court’s discretion to attach conditions to the grant of probate, as are necessary, to achieve the wishes of the testator. In the specific circumstances of this case, it was determined that the appointment of a Monitor would respect the testator’s choice of estate trustees.
The doctrine of undue influence is frequently employed to attack gifts. However, can the doctrine of equitable fraud apply when the requirements of undue influence are not otherwise met? That is the subject of this blog.
Rule 13.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure (the “Rules”) specifies where proceedings (which includes applications and actions) are to be commenced.
In Piekut, the court determined that a codicil to a will was valid notwithstanding that the application was commenced more than two years after the applicant discovered the codicil’s existence. Justice Dietrich made this determination despite case law that stands for the proposition that a party seeking to challenge a will must do so within two years from the date of the deceased's death, subject to the discoverability rules in the Limitations Act.
In our previous blog, we talked about how expert evidence is often essential to establish the parameters of the standard of care in professional negligence claims. In this blog, we outline how an expert formulates an opinion on those parameters using professional negligence claims against accountants as an example.
Liability in negligence does not necessarily follow where the conduct of one person has caused economic loss to another. To impose liability, you must first establish the existence of a duty of care and a failure on the part of the defendant to meet the required standard of care.
In New Brunswick the legislation provides a judge with discretion to ignore the formalities of execution and that is what happened here. Could that happen in Ontario?
This blog is about the duty of a trustee to supervise and not to delegate.
Can one executor be held liable for the actions of a co-executor? This is the question put to the court in Cahill v. Cahill.