Personalizing Your Estate Plan

Associate Colin Flannigan regularly advises clients in the practice areas of wills, trusts, estate and incapacity planning, estate administration, residential and commercial real estate, property matters, corporate transactions, and business law.

In this episode of Legal Matters, Colin discusses how your estate plan is unique to you and your assets. He talks about how your estate plan will be customized so that what you want to happen — actually does.

Transcript:

Your circumstance is unique; as a result, your estate plan should be customized to meet your particular needs. 

Remember, your estate plan is more than just a Will. Yes, your Will is an important part; but how you hold and own property is also part of your estate plan. You can have assets that pass outside of your estate with real property, and it could be registered in joint tenancy with the right of survivorship. 

You could also have financial accounts that pass outside of your estates, such as an RRSP, an RRIF, or a tax-free savings account with designated beneficiaries, and the same goes for life insurance. 

Take care that everything works together; your estate plan has a number of different pieces that are part of a bigger picture. Take particular care when you have a blended family — you may have competing obligations between your spouse and children of her prior relationship. The Wills, Estate, Succession Act says that we have legal and moral obligations to make just, adequate, and equitable provisions for our spouse and our children. What is appropriate in the circumstance always depends on your personal situation so, in order to be confident with what you want to happen without leaving a mess, make sure you get the advice you need.