As is widely understood, limitation periods generally aim to strike the appropriate balance between an aggrieved party’s right to seek redress and a potential defendant’s right not to remain under the cloud of litigation indefinitely or to answer for a wrong where it has become difficult, if not impossible, to marshal the evidence.
However, limitation periods are widely regarded as the bane of a lawyer’s existence. In the estates context, there is a dirge of case law both old and new, a relatively recent limitations act to consider, and exceptions for certain types of estate litigation proceedings.
In this article, I will address limitation periods as they apply to estate litigation generally as well as three discrete topics that an estate litigator would routinely encounter: (1) Spousal elections under the Family Law Act (“FLA”)1; (2) Dependant support claims under the Succession Law Reform Act (“SLRA”)2; and (3) Will challenges.
Read the full paper here: Understanding Limitation Periods in Estate Litigation by Justin de Vries
