Some 17 years ago I approached Frank Dimant, the then CEO of B’nai Brith with an idea. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could be part of the continuing legal education process for accountants and lawyers servicing our community? At that point in time there were few programs around that brought in first-tier professionals at a kosher venue that address both issues of interest from both a Jewish and secular law prospective.
The CJN dealt with this in the context of the upcoming B'nai Brith CLE seminar on May 30, 2018, and it features Rabbi Torczyner, Archie Rabinowitz and other presenters who are participating in the vignette and panel discussion on this issue.
Howard Black, Kimberly Whaley, Sharon Shore, Charles Ticker, Caroline Abela and Raquel Goldberg are featured in this week’s Canadian Jewish Newspaper piece about the upcoming B’nai Brith seminar on May 30, 2018.
There is an interesting piece in this week’s CJN. It is about the CLE B’Nai Brith Seminar on May 30, 2018, and features prominent accountants and lawyers who are presenters at this seminar. They are Clare Burns, Craig Vander Zee, Jonathan Hames, Jordan Atin, Melanie Yach, Nikolay Chserbinin and our own Brendan Donovan.
Douglas and Shila Gamoff listed their home for sale for $2,000,000. They had 18 showings leading to a bidding war. The prospect of competing against multiple offers prompted Yixing Hu and David Lea to make an offer to buy the house for $2,250,000. Their offer was accepted. But sometime after signing the agreement of purchase and sale, the purchasers had buyers’ remorse. David Lea pleaded with the vendors to let him out of the deal. The buyers felt they overpaid.
In this case the daughters of the deceased challenged their father’s will. He left the bulk of his estate to his common law wife. The daughters alleged that the common law wife exerted undue influence on their father and that coercion was the reason he changed his will.
One might expect that an attorney for property would have to pursue unpaid compensation that s/he may be entitled to within 2 years or the incapable person or his estate would a limitation period defence against the claim. Let’s see what the Court of Appeal for Ontario had to say on this issue in Armitage v. Salvation Army.
The current system allows anyone who appears to have a financial interest in an estate to challenge a will for minimal costs by giving notice of their objection. All that is required is the filing of a one page document called a “notice of objection”. This is often a boiler plate document alleging that the will-maker did not have capacity, did not know or approve of the contents of a will or was unduly influenced. At this stage, no evidence has to be provided and the application for probate will be temporarily derailed.
It is said that there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. For those involved in litigation, there is a third: legal fees. Who should bear the often-exorbitant cost of these fees at the conclusion of litigation? Although legal costs have traditionally been paid out of the Estate, modern Ontario courts follow the “loser pays” rule in estates matters. A recent ruling from the Court of Appeal for Ontario[1. Welton Estate v. Haugrud, 2017 ONCA 831] demonstrates that the court has flexibility even when operating within this rule. Specifically, the court can apportion costs between the litigants in a way that respects the importance of giving effect to valid wills while also discouraging parties from taking unreasonable positions.
In Ontario a person is entitled to change his/her mind and revoke his/her will. There are a number of ways to revoke a Will. One such way is for the testator to burn, tear up or otherwise destroy it or by having some other person do so in his or her presence and by his or her direction with the intention of revoking the Will. But, sometimes there is no witness or proof that any such destruction took place. That begs the question - what happens if after the testator dies no one can find the Will and no one has knowledge that it was destroyed?