In Canada, for the most part, there is little day-to-day difference between couples who are legally married and couples who are common law. You can get benefits at work, get a family membership at the gym, and generally live as if you are married. One significant...
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estate planning
Celebrity death match, round two
I have posted often before on the fact that celebrities tend to make the same mistakes as the rest of us, just compounded by more money and more dependants (you can read posts here, here and here, for example). Sheyna Steiner has posted a new list of celebrity follies...
Your family may have changed. Has your will?
Last week, I wrote about updating your will for your own benefit. Today, I want to talk about updating your will for the benefit of others. Last month, Elizabeth O’Brien wrote this article on MarketWatch. She mentions a vast number of reasons why it can be disastrous...
Update your will!
I love reading Consumer Reports. It's a great magazine with a lot of very useful tips - both in general, and when you're looking to make a major purchase.I was catching up on my reading recently, and came across this article on money mistakes to avoid and the first...
Giving and taking back
I came across this story the other day about a gift left to charity that ended up in the wrong place. Basically, the donation was accidentally sent to the wrong animal shelter; both had the same name, but were in identically named cities in different states. In this...
Changing it up
Many people know that, on marriage, your will is automatically revoked. There is a good public policy reason for this: your spouse should not be disinherited simply because you forgot to update your will. (I touched on the issue of predatory marriages a while back.)...
Two thumbs up for doing your estate plan right
Roger Ebert, the film critic famous for popularizing the "two thumbs up" concept for movies, passed away last month after a long battle with cancer. Ebert's estate gives us an important lesson: take warnings from people close to you very much to heart. Ebert's friend...
Things no one tells you about death
I came across this post the other day (warning: some NSFW text) and immediately connected with so much of it. While I might not have used the exact same language, he makes a lot of really good points. There is so much that we are not prepared for when someone dies;...
You’re going to die. Be prepared.
I regularly read the blog Lifehacker, which is basically a collection of tips for making life easier. A few weeks ago, I came across this article on what you need to do now to prepare for death. As the author observes, none of us likes to think about death. It will...
Where do you keep your estate plan?
Having a properly drafted will and powers of attorney is important. Making sure that your executor and/or beneficiaries know where they are? Almost equally important. Probably at least every other week, every lawyer who is a member of the Simcoe County Law Association...