Wills And Estate Planning: Failing To Plan Is Planning To Fail

Our Will pricing encompasses a comprehensive one-hour estate planning session dedicated to assessing your family and financial circumstances. This enables us to craft a personalized estate plan meticulously tailored to your unique needs and preferences. Beyond its tax-efficient nature, our customized approach serves as a protective measure against potential future disputes and legal entanglements, while also ensuring your peace of mind. Furthermore, we offer attractive 'package deals' with substantial discounts when you opt for the simultaneous preparation of Powers of Attorney (for financial decisions) and Representation Agreements (for medical decisions). By choosing our 'complete package,' which includes all three documents, you could save up to $100 on each.

Having a Will done, can save taxes, time, and complications/disputes for your family. Even when you don’t have many assets, by appointing the right people as the Executors of your estate, it may help by avoiding unnecessary headaches for your family dealing with banks and other agencies, ensuring complete compliance with Wills and Succession Act. Moreover, if you have minor children, you must have a Will, since that would allow you to appoint Guardians for them in case of your death, so their custody is not passed automatically to the Public Guardian and Trustee and then your family members would need to apply to become their guardians. Ultimately, you’re not making a Will, but buying yourself “peace of mind”!

But can you? If you’re indeed a trained paralegal or notary/lawyer, who would know exactly how to prepare it, then sure – no problem. However, if you’re asking that you use an “online kit” or a template from a friend, etc., then I wouldn’t advice anyone to do that to themselves and to their family. The amount of money that you’re saving is not even closet to how much money, taxes, and family complications you’d be having if there is an issue with your “home-made” Will.

If you die without a Will, the BC legislation would govern of what happens with your estate.First, the court will appoint a guardian for any minor children (and if the right person cannot be found, then the Public Guardian and Trustee would become the guardian). Also, the court must appoint an Administrator of the estate or, again, this position may go to the Public Guardian and Trustee. (As you can imagine, both of these situations would imply more time, more money, and more headaches.) Then, the estate is divided according to a specific formula:

• If there is a surviving spouse, but no children/grandchildren, then the estate goes to the spouse;
• If there is a spouse and children (from both of them), then the spouse gets the first $300,000 and 50% of the rest, since the other 50% would be divided among the children. (If at least one of the children is not also the spouse’s child, then only the first $150,000 would go to the spouse plus the 50% of what is left over.
• If there is no spouse, then the estate is divided equally among all their descendants.
• If there is no spouse and no descendants, then the estate goes to your parents (and if they’re not alive, then it goes to your siblings.

Normally, there is not much preparation needed for our first meeting. We would send our Wills Questionnaire in advance, and you would fill out the basic information and skip any information that you don’t have at the moment. Then, during our meeting (in-person or over the videoconference) we would discuss all the details and I may help you answer the questions that you may have had before our meeting. If, in case there are some small items missing (e.g. addresses, names, etc.) then you may send them to us after the meeting, so we can finish drafting your documents and send them to your for approval before you coming back to sign them in about 2-3 weeks.