Passing the Trustee’s Accounts When There Are Business Assets At the beneficiaries’ insistence, or at his own initiation, a trustee[i] may apply to court to pass his accounts. Once in court passing format, the accounts will list the deceased’s assets as of date of death, and trace any subsequent disposition of those assets. However, where…
If a theme were to emerge from the contested passing of accounts cases that were decided in 2013, it would be “protect the innocent”. In some cases, this theme manifested itself in decisions to remove trustees who acted improperly or to surcharge trustees who misappropriated funds. In other cases, judges protected honest (albeit imperfect) fiduciaries…
Most people feel honoured and/or touched when they learn for the first time (they are rarely asked beforehand) that they are named as an executor or a trustee. However, the honeymoon quickly wears thin when it becomes apparent to the newly appointed executor or trustee how much work is often required. The prospects darken further…
As noted by one jurist[1], to the extent that it was not clear prior, the Ontario Court of Appeal made it abundantly clear in McDougald Estate v. Gooderham[2] that the modern approach to fixing costs in estate litigation is to carefully scrutinize the litigation and, unless the court finds that some public policy consideration applies,…
When errors by a trustee cause losses to a trust, the question arises as to who should be forced to bear the weight of those losses: the beneficiaries or the trustees? On the one hand, it seems unfair that a beneficiary should lose because of the mistakes of someone who is in charge of administering…