If you have a will, you fall into the minority. It’s a pretty exclusive club: according to a survey done by RocketLawyer in the U.S., 57% of Americans have no wills; most likely these statistics hold true for Canadians as well. Even more interesting is some of the...
Latest News
cesia@wall-arm.ca
New or used?
MoneySense Magazine ran an article back in November on the 10 mistakes people make when buying a brand-new home rather than purchasing a resale property. In order: Falling in love with the show home Trusting the floor plan Not getting a lawyer involved until after you...
Putting your money where your mouth is
I read this article a while ago about Joseph Flom, a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meaghar & Flom LLP in New York who grew up very humbly, and built his firm into a global company with 24 offices around the world (including one in Toronto). When he died in...
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here's an excerpt: A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry...
Happy holidays!
From all of us to all of you, we wish you a very happy holiday season and all the best for 2012. I will be taking a break from the blog to spend time with my family, and will be back in the new year.
Protecting the black sheep
The Globe and Mail ran an article in the fall about leaving unequal gifts to different children. Sometimes, when I help clients with this type of situation, I draft the reasoning behind the unequal distribution right into the will so that there is no confusion as to...
Subject to lawyer’s approval
Mark Weisleder wrote this article for Moneyville a while back on several recent issues with the “subject to lawyer’s approval” clause found in many real estate deals. He discussed two cases in particular, one where the deal was successfully cancelled because of a...
Disinheritance
There has been a fair bit in the news lately about children challenging wills because they were partially or entirely disinherited. In some jurisdictions, particularly British Columbia, it is very difficult to entirely remove a child from a will because of moral...
Fixed or variable?
The Globe and Mail had a feature a while ago about whether you should choose a fixed or variable rate mortgage when you buy or refinance, which included this handy summary of the issues. As noted in the article, if you are less comfortable with risk or are certain...
Predatory marriages
There is a very well-known case in Ontario called Banton v. Banton. In that case, an elderly man married a waitress in his long-term care facility and subsequently redid his will, cutting out his children from his first marriage and leaving his new wife his entire...