A will is a written document, either paper or digital, that spells out exactly where you want your possessions to go after you're gone, who will assume guardianship of your children, and more. Think of it as your last gift to your loved ones — a clear set of instructions that ensures they can carry out your final wishes, and that they’ll be taken care of for many years to come.

Bare Trusts: Advantages and Disadvantages

Bare Trusts

A bare trust is a legal structure that facilitates the separation of legal and beneficial ownership over a property.

Generally, it's used in a real estate context. A bare trustee company is created which is a BC corporation that holds the legally registered title on the property.

The beneficial ownership remains with the person who originally purchased the property. The beneficial owner is the person or persons who continue to make all arrangements; they're responsible for leasing the property, receiving rents and reporting income.

The beneficial owner is the real owner of the property.

The bare trustee company is the one that is actually on the title, the company name is registered in the land title office (the “LTO”). From a tax perspective, the trustee company isn't going to be reporting any taxes at all because they don't actually beneficial ownership of the property.

In this article, we’ll cover the following topics:

- What is an estate freeze?

- When should I freeze my estate?

- What are the tax benefits of an estate freeze?

- Avoiding capital gains upon death

- Income-splitting opportunities

- Multiplying the lifetime capital gain exemption (LCGE)

What is an estate freeze?

An estate freeze allows you to transfer your business to the next generation without incurring immediate capital gains taxes, all while retaining control of the business and maintaining a steady stream of income.

In this article, we’ll cover the following topics:
- How to transfer your business to the next generation
- Estate freeze
- Family trust
- Section 85 rollover
- Common shares

How to transfer your business to the next generation

A common mistake business owners make when transferring their business to non-arms-length individuals (e.g. their children, siblings, etc.) is setting the value of their business at a nominal amount – essentially gifting their business to the next generation.

Family Trusts | What Is It & How Do They Work?

A family trust is a structure that facilitates the distribution of wealth to the beneficiaries named in the trust. Typically, your children, grandchildren, spouses are named as beneficiaries.

How does it work?

A trust agreement will set out a trustee and name one or more beneficiaries of the trust. A trustee is responsible for distributing the assets held within the trust, and typically has wide and even absolute discretion to determine who receives what, and when. A beneficiary may receive distributions from the trust, but they do not have a legal entitlement to those funds, which shores up the level of control that can be exercised over the trust funds.If you have more money than you need to live on during your lifetime, then you can give the funds to your children outright as a gift - but then you wouldn’t have any control over what they do with the funds. That’s ok for some people, but if you want to retain control over when those funds are used, a family trust can allow you to put aside funds for them and allow you to control when those funds are actually distributed to them - if at all. This can be helpful if you have, for example, a disabled child or a child that you don’t trust to use the funds wisely.

What Happens If You Die Without a Will? | 3 Important Things You Need to Know

3 important things you to know about the importance of having a Will.

1) Common Scenarios

- The first thing to know about dying without a will is that the distribution of your estate is, of course, going to be very unclear. The default rules of the Wills Estates and Succession Acts are going to apply and so I'm going to cover off some of the common scenarios here.

Estate Planning during a Pandemic - is it possible?

Estate Planning During a Pandemic

The impact of COVID-19 is being felt around the globe, bringing dramatic changes to our daily lives. The pandemic has also brought to light the importance of creating an estate plan or updating an existing one. This may not be something that many people wish to consider but it is critical to have your affairs in order, especially during unpredictable times such as these. An estate plan typically includes a will, power of attorney and a representation agreement. Although provinces in Canada have different requirements for these documents, a common feature is having signed the document in the presence of two witnesses who also sign the document. Typically done through in-person meetings with a lawyer, it has been made very difficult due to social distancing and quarantining.