When you buy a new home, there are always more costs than your down payment. Closing costs involve costs such as from real estate commissions (if you are selling), land transfer tax (if you are buying), legal fees and disbursements and moving costs. You should always...
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cesia@wall-arm.ca
All in the family
Whenever I meet with clients to discuss their estate plans, I always recommend that they discuss their decisions with their family members to ensure that everyone understands why the will was drafted a particular way, especially if there is to be an unequal...
Teranet and the (not so) new electronic registration system
In Ontario, most real estate transfers are completed electronically; at last check, 97% of land registry offices were equipped to do electronic registration. Everything from title searches to registration of mortgages to transfers of property is completed online, with...
George Steinbrenner: an estate done right
I’ve written a number of posts recently on estates that were poorly planned or not planned at all. For a change, here is an estate that was planned properly: George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees. Steinbrenner, who died last month, was the unplanned...
How to take title
There are several ways of taking title to property in Ontario, with the two most common being joint tenancy and tenancy in common. Joint tenancy means that two (or more) people jointly own the entire interest in the property. If one joint tenant dies, the other...
Franz Kafka: An estate risen from the dead
The Globe and Mail published an article last week on the estate of Franz Kafka. The article deals with the literary estate of the author of several masterpieces of the 20th century. At the time of his death, Kafka asked his friend and executor, Max Brod, to destroy...
Tips for first-time buyers
The Globe and Mail posted an article yesterday called “10 worst first-time homebuyer mistakes”. While the contents are based on American real estate law, they are certainly applicable to what first-time buyers should be aware of when purchasing property in Ontario....
Celebrity death match
There have been a number of high-profile estates in the news recently, with the deaths of Gary Coleman, George Steinbrenner, Stieg Larsson and Chris Haney (co-creator of Trivial Pursuit), to name a few. Most of the time, celebrities’ estates make the headlines because...
More estates going to the dogs
Kathryn Pilkington at Hull & Hull wrote several posts recently on providing for pets through a will (you can find them here, here and here). These were inspired by the recent will challenge to the estate of Gail Posner, a Florida millionaire, who left her $8...
Land transfer tax rebates
Land transfer tax is imposed by the provincial government on all purchases of property in Ontario (with an additional tax imposed by the City of Toronto for properties purchased there). It is equivalent to approximately 1.5% of the purchase price. Land transfer tax...