We finally wrote our will!
So we finally did our will today! We have been told numerous times by everyone we know that “We needed a Will.
Imperium Private Wealth, where I now work as an advisor, works with many professional partners such as accountants, will and estate lawyers, insurance providers and the like. In fact we even have an ex-CRA agent working in our office!
So here is our second issue of “A Day In the Life of Maria, the financial advisor” newsletter, where we take you, our subscribers, on a journey as I navigate my everyday, financial life!
Once you get to a certain age, you start to really think about the what ifs. And now that Mike and I have been building our life for over 24 years, we have some possessions that we would like our three kids to have. In case anything happens…..
Lucas and Ophelia, our twins are now 17 years old and our youngest son Dexter just turned 14.
I will not bore you with all of the details of the process but here are some very important tidbits from our meeting today with Andrew, our will and estates lawyer.
1. Anything labeled under “joint” such as ownership of your house, bank accounts and non-registered investments will always automatically roll over to the person you own that entity with . Even if your will says otherwise, the law bypasses the will and the entity will now be owned by the other joint owner.
2. If you currently have an RESP, you would think that the proceeds would go to your kids as they are the beneficiaries right? Wrong! The subscriber (payor of RESP), in our case both Mike and I, are the owners and the money doesn’t go to the kids automatically like a normal beneficiary say for an RRSP would.
If there are no instructions in our will for the RESP continuance, it may collapse and contributions will go to our estate or an executor will decide what to do with it! What???
Definitely look into this!
Please ensure to double check your RESP as if you have already named a successor subscriber, this is the person that would continue your RESP. If the will and the RESP successors are different then the RESP appointment usually takes precedence.
3. An executor of your estate is usually paid a compensation for performing this very important job. This is money well spent as this takes a long time and they take care of items such as the funeral arrangements, applying for a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee and is responsible for paying all your taxes. They close all your bank accounts and notify all government entities of your death. They also file your final tax return and on top of that they will manage all of your beneficiaries! This is no easy feat!
Next up! We are going to make a binder with all of the information that the executor might need….stay tuned for how we do it!
So always think about all of this when you are naming your executors, or when you get named one for somebody you know.
Estate planning is not easy, Canada has definitely made sure it wasn’t….
I hope this was a good learning experience for you! It definitely was for us! And I’m glad that we have it all planned now.
You can’t pay for that kind of Peace of Mind!
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