A solicitor owes a duty of care to his or her client. This duty arises in contract (under the terms of the retainer agreement) and as a professional duty imposed on all lawyers to act with skill and competence when serving their client. The appropriate standard of varies with the circumstances and type of legal […]
At the beneficiaries’ insistence, or at his own initiation, a trustee 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 the estate assets include one or more businesses, the
There are unique challenges faced by estates and trust practitioners when taking estate planning instructions. Estate planning is something that most folks are reticent to do in the first place – for many, it languishes on a list of “should do’s” for some time before something – a pending divorce, a scheduled plane trip, a
When the central issue in litigation is whether a person is capable or not, a capacity assessment can be an invaluable tool to assist the Court in making that determination. However, such an order is (and should be) difficult to obtain. To adopt the words of Justice Pattillo in Flynn et al v. Flynn ,
As the estates bar knows all too well, a last will and testament can be the final chance for a person to communicate his or her thoughts, wishes and desires to the world. It is no surprise then that a will often reflects the idiosyncrasies of its author, whether in form or in content. Some
