I once had clients who were having wills drafted. He was Muslim, of Iranian background; most of his family was overseas. She had converted to Islam after marrying him, and they had chosen to raise their children Muslim. It was very important to them to have wills in...
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Estate Planning
What’s your cause of death?
Here’s something interesting, and a bit creepy: a map showing the most common cause of death in each state in the USA, after heart disease and cancer. Check it out here. It’s hard to say how this would generalize to other countries. I expect that you would see similar...
Who owns your embryos?
If digital assets are the next frontier of estate planning, biological assets are the next next frontier. It is up in the air as to who has rights over your online self after your death; it is equally mystifying who might have rights over physical parts of you. There...
Estate Quest
A few weeks ago, I wrote about online gamers; this week, it’s about an online game. Stephanie Kimbro is hoping to develop a game that allows people to learn about estates law. Users will play detective and try to figure out what happened with someone’s estate and what...
The online gamer
I have written a lot about digital assets. Most people don’t think much of them, as they aren’t too concerned with what would happen to their email or social media accounts after their deaths. Leaving aside the question of your deceased parent popping up in your...
A separation
In Ontario, marriage automatically revokes a will. The moment I sign my marriage documents this October, it will revoke my current will; I could choose to revive it later, but I would have to deliberately do so. The rationale for this is that a spouse or future...
A storage solution
When I see clients to do will instructions, part of what I do is create a snapshot of what the client has in terms of assets, whether that is physical (car, bank account, house) or digital (email account, social media, online gaming). This is extremely helpful when it...
Teaching children the value of giving
A little while ago, I came across this article by Ron Lieber on bringing his children into the family’s decisions on annual charitable giving. Basically, they decided last year that they would choose, as a family, those charities that they would give to over the...
Answer the questions
In our office, we have all of our estate planning clients fill out a questionnaire before coming in to see us. Our questionnaire is about five pages long, and goes through who is in the family, what assets you have, and whether you have agreements that we might need...
A Hollywood estate done right
A short time ago, Paul Walker, star of the Fast and Furious movies, died in a car crash. He left behind a 15-year-old daughter and an estate worth an estimated $15 million. He drafted his will back in 2001, when his daughter was very young, and named his father as...