Kimberly Rule is Speaking to Canadian Bar Association B.C. Wills and Trusts Sections Tomorrow

Kimberly is presenting on the topic of proprietary estoppel  by video conference tomorrow at 4:15 pm.., November 17, 2020. Her presentation will include a discussion of the decision in Linde v. Linde, 2019 BCSC 1586, in which she successfully argued a  claim to a ranch based on proprietary estoppel. 

Continuing Legal Education: Wills, Estates and Trusts Conference

The British Columbia Legal Education Society is holding its Wills, Estates and Trusts Conference online this year on November 5 and 6. Genevieve Taylor, of Legacy, Tax + Trust Lawyers,  is chair of the Estate Planing Update 2020 on November 5, and Helen Low QC, of Faskin, Martineau, DuMoulin LLP is chair of the Estate Litigation Update 2020 on November 6.

I will be speaking at the Estate Litigation Update on "Bad Fiduciaries." 

For more information, here is the CLE link. 

Trial Lawyers Association of B.C. Estate and Family Law Summit

I am going to be speaking at the Trial Lawyers Association of B.C. Estate and Family Law Summit on Friday, April 5, 2019 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. I will be on a panel with barbara findlay Q.C., and Monique Shebbeare, moderated by Zara Suleman. Our topic is "Families Look Like This: A Closer Look at Polyamory, LATS and ART for the Family and Estate Bar."

For more information about the conference, you can read the schedule here.

CLEBC Estate Litigation Update Course

I am going to be speaking at the Estate Litigation Update course on Friday, November 16 at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver. My topic will be on the Curing Deficiencies and Rectification section of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act. This is the second day of a two-day Wills, Estates and Trusts Conference. The first day focuses on planning issues.

Registration information and the full agenda is available at the CLEBC website here.

Estate Litigation Basics Course, April 13, 2018

I have the honour of speaking at the Continuing Legal Education Course on Estate Litigation Basics, at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, 801 West Georgia Street (I had earlier put the Pan Pacific but the location has changed) in Vancouver on April 13, 2018. I am speaking about evidence in estate litigation. My paper is co-authored (or will be when it's done) by Taeya Fitzpatrick of my firm.

The course is chaired by Lauren Blake of Legacy Tax and Trust Lawyers, Vancouver. The other faculty are:

The Honourable Madam Justice D. Jane Dardi — Supreme Court of BC, Vancouver
The Honourable Sandra K. Ballance — Mediator, Vancouver
Colleen Cattell, QC, C. Med. — Mediator & Arbitrator, Vancouver & Victoria
Coran Cooper-Stephenson — Claims Counsel, Lawyers Insurance Fund, Vancouver
Rhys Davies, QC — DLA Piper (Canada) LLP, Vancouver
M. Scott Kerwin — Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Vancouver
Kimberly A. Kuntz — Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, Vancouver
Anna Laing — Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP, Vancouver
Amy A. Mortimore — Clark Wilson LLP, Vancouver
Maryanne Prohl — Claims Counsel, Lawyers Insurance Fund, Vancouver

You may attend in person or by webinar.

The agenda and registration information is available at the CLEBC website here.

Kimberly Rule Presenting at "Death is Not the End" Continuing Legal Education Course

Kimberly Rule of our firm will be one of the group leaders at the two-day estate-administration workshop, "Death is Not the End." The course will be held on March 8th and 9th at the Pan Pacific Hotel, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, B.C. For further course information and registration, see the Continuing Legal Education website here.

2017 Canadian Elder Law Conference

I have the privilege of speaking at this year's Canadian Elder Law Conference at the Pan Pacific Hotel, in Vancouver, B.C. The 2017 Conference will be held on Thursday, November 2, and Friday, November 3.

I will be on a panel with Sara Beheshti of O'Sullivan Estate Lawyers LLP in Toronto, and Kimberly Whaley of Whaley Estate Litigation Partners, also based in Toronto. Our topic is "Capacity, Undue Influence, and Independent Legal Advice: How To Interview and When To Insist On Independent Legal Advice."

The Conference is presented by the Canadian Centre for Elder Law and the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia.

You can find the full agenda and registration information here.

I Will be Speaking at the Legal Education Society of Alberta Capacity and Influence Course

I have the honour of being included in the faculty for a course on Capacity and Influence, which will be held in both Edmonton and Calgary, presented by the Legal Education Society of Alberta.

The course is chaired by John Poyser, author of the text Capacity and Undue Influence, Carswell, 2014. The other speakers are:

Dr. Arlin Pachet, Ph.D, R. Psych, ABPP-CN
Pachet Assessment
and Rehabilitation Services
Calgary, Alberta

Shelley E. Waite, TEP
McLeod Law LLP
Calgary, Alberta

Helen R. Ward
Duncan Craig LLP
Edmonton, Alberta

Kimberly A. Whaley, CS, TEP, LLM
WEL Partners
Toronto, Ontario

The topics cover undue influence and capacity in respect of both lifetime transfers and wills, approached from both a litigation perspective, and a planning perspective. I will be speaking the planning side of  undue influence including steps a lawyer may take to recognize risk factors for undue influence, what steps a lawyer may take if it appears likely that his or her client is being unduly influenced, and how the file should be documented in order to provide evidence in case a transaction or will that the lawyer has been involved with is later challenged as having been obtained by undue influence.

The dates and places of the course are as follows:

EDMONTON
March 1, 2017
Chateau Louis Hotel
& Conference Centre
11727 Kingsway NW

CALGARY
March 8, 2017
Glenmore Inn
& Convention Centre
2720 Glenmore Trail SE
9:00 AM–4:30 PM

Registration information is available in the brochure.

On March 15, 2017, I will also be speaking on my topic at the Canadian Bar Association, Okanagan Wills and Trusts section meeting.

Continuing Legal Education Society of B.C. Wills, Estates and Trusts Conference 2016

I will be speaking at the Estate Litigation Update portion of the Continuing Legal Education Wills, Estates and Trusts Conference in October. The conference is a two-day conference, the first day, October 6, focusing on estate planning issues, and the second, October 7, on estate litigation. Registrants may register for either day, or for both days.

My topic is Proving, Rectifying and Interpreting a Will under WESA.

The conference will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre, West Building
1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, B.C. You may also attend by webinar.

For more information, check out this link.

Kimberly Wallis Presenting at the CBA, Will Estate and Trust Fundamentals for Estate Practitioners

Kimberly Wallis of our firm, Sabey Rule LLP, will be among the faculty at the Canadian Bar Association, Will Estate and Trust Fundamentals for Estate Practitioners. This five-day program will be held from October 26th through October 30th, 2016 at the Westin Prince, in Toronto, Ontario. The program, chaired by Melanie Yach of Aird & Berlis LLP, is directed to junior to intermediate trusts and estate practitioners as well as general practitioners. While held in Toronto, this program is national in scope, and will draw participants from throughout Canada.

You may read the agenda here, and the registration form is available here. Please note that there is a discount on the registration fees for those registering no later than August 8, 2016.

Kimberly will be leading a workshop on Saturday, October 29th on "Busting the Trust."

CBA National Wills, Estates and Trusts Section

I had the privilege of chairing the Canadian Bar Association National Wills, Estates and Trusts Section meeting in Ottawa last weekend. The participants included the executive of the national section, and chairs of provincial and territorial wills, estates and trusts sections across Canada.

Our section is especially active in professional development and law reform.

This fall we held a webcast, entitled "The Changed Landscape: the Impact of New Tax Rules on Trusts and Estate Donations," and a four-day course in Toronto on "Wills, Estate and Trust Fundamentals for Estate Practitioners," which was sold out. At our meeting last weekend, we agreed to apply to hold a similar course again next year in Toronto, adding another day to the program. In future years, the section may hold this course in other parts of Canada.

Much of our focus on legislation and law reform is on taxation affecting estate planning and administration. This is a logical area for us to focus on nationally, because most other legislation affecting wills, estates and trusts is provincial, and varies from province-to-province. In the last few years, we have made submissions to the Department of Finance Canada concerning the proposal to eliminate graduated rates for testamentary trusts (except for the first three years of an estate), on reforms to encourage charitable giving, and to the Canada Revenue Agency in respect of its policies on Canada Pension Plan remissions in respect of remuneration received by personal representatives of estates.

Last weekend, we struck up a committee to look at further submissions to Finance Canada concerning the changes to taxation of life interest trusts (I have written about some of the significant problems the changes will pose to estate plans here).

One project unique to our section is the National Wills, Estates and Trusts – Succession Law: Tables of National Concordance. These tables set out a summary of laws relating to succession and incapacity planning for each province and territory.  To list just a few, the tables include summaries of legislation governing the formal validity of wills, procedures for obtaining an estate grant, the distribution of assets on an intestacy, and requirements for making valid enduring powers of attorney. The tables are accessible by all members of the Canadian Bar Association, and are also published by Carswell.

This summer, our then chair Rosie Dikeakos accepted  on behalf of our section the National Sections Council Award of Excellence.

You may read more about the National Wills, Estates and Trusts Section on the Canadian Bar Association website here. 

CBA Will, Estate and Trust Fundamentals for Estate Practitioners

The Wills, Estates and Trusts section of the Canadian Bar Association is presenting a four-day program on Will, Estate and Trust Fundamentals at the Intercontinental Toronto Centre, in Toronto, Ontario. The program is national in scope, and has a strong faculty. It is geared to lawyers "practicing in the area of trusts and estate planning, estate litigation and tax in their first seven years of practice, as well as general practitioners, accountants, trust officers and aligned professionals seeking a background in trust and estate law issues and related topics."

The course is proving to be quite popular, but as of a week ago, there were still a few spots available. For registration information, see the CBA website here.

2015 Canadian Conference on Elder Law

The Canadian Center for Elder Law together with the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia are presenting a two day conference: The Journey of Aging – the Law and Beyond. The conference will be held on Thursday and Friday, November 12 and 13, 2015 at the Pan Pacific Hotel, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, B.C. Here is the description from the CCEL website: 

DAY 1: Connecting Across Discipline and Geography
Join practitioners from law, social work, health care, finance, non-profit and other sectors from across the country and around the world to talk about the challenges and issues involved in working with older adults.

DAY 2: Key Practice Challenges and Hot Topics in Legal Practice
Explore issues engaged in powers of attorney and substitute decision-making, health care decision-making and end of life care, mental capacity and dementia, elder abuse and neglect, and other challenging subjects that arise in representing older adults and their families.

Keynote speakers will include:

• Isobel Mackenzie, BC’s Senior’s Advocate
• Dr. Andrew Wister, Chair, National Senior’s Council
• Barb MacLean, Chair, BC Council to Reduce Elder Abuse

Confirmed presenters:

• Catherine Romanko, BC Public Guardian and Trustee
• Andrew S. MacKay, Alexander, Holburn, Beaudin and Lang
• Geoffrey W. White, Geoffrey W. White Law Corporation
• Diedre J. Herbert, McLellan Herbert
• John-Paul Boyd, Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family
• Anna Laing, Fasken Martineau
• Kimberly A. Whaley, Whaley Estate Litigation
• Honourable Marion J. Allan, Clark Wilson LLP
• Barbara Buchanan, Law Society of BC

Panels will include:

• Advance health care planning—implications of the Bentley decision
• Debate: Would a national power of attorney registry help reduce elder financial abuse?
• Update on guardianship law in BC—what’s happening one year after legislative change
• Who do you call when you suspect elder abuse? Introducing the new BC decision tree
• Physician assisted suicide after Carter—where do we go from here?
• Late life separation and divorce
• Dementia and client competency: practice tips, communication strategies and ethical issues
• The when and how of mental capacity assessments

Registration information is available on the CLEBC site here.

Continuing Legal Education Society Presentation on "Reining in the Rogue Trustee/Executor"

I am going to be speaking at the Continuing Legal Education Society course, Estate Litigation Update - 2014, next week on Thursday, October 23, 2014 at the Pan Pacific Hotel, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, B.C. the course goes from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, and is part of a two-day wills, estates and trusts conference beginning Wednesday. My topic will be "Reining in the Rogue Trustee/Executor."

Registration is through the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia.

The agenda is as follows:

Welcome and Introduction

Helen H. Low — Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Vancouver

Wills Variation Update

• recent cases
• recent trends related to awards of costs
• WESA transition
• abatement of settlement

Hugh S. McLellan — McLellan Herbert, Vancouver

When Good Planning is not Enough

• when is a good estate plan no longer “bullet proof”
• strategies to set aside estate plans to disinherit
• Mordo, Mawdsley and Easingwood  issues

Peter J. Glowacki — Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Vancouver  
M. Scott Kerwin — Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Vancouver

Networking Break

Mediation/Arbitration/Settlement Conferences

• using the best process in the appropriate case
• preparation for the proceeding
• promoting a consent resolution—what works
• documenting the settlement

The Honourable Marion J. Allan — Clark Wilson LLP, Vancouver
Roger D. Lee — Davis LLP, Vancouver

Solicitor-Client Privilege—What Does that Mean in Estate Litigation

• how to secure a lawyer’s file in estate litigation
• who holds the privilege and who can waive it
• what attack can be made when the file is released

Scott Cordell — Killam Cordell Murray, Vancouver

Networking Lunch 

Rectification of Trusts and Wills

• how can applications for rectification be made
• the applicable law—when it works and when it doesn’t
• other options

Amy D. Francis — Legacy Tax + Trust Lawyers, Vancouver
Ian Worland — Legacy Tax + Trust Lawyers, Vancouver

Reining in the Rogue Trustee/Executor

• what conduct warrants removal or other relief

Stanley T. Rule — Sabey Rule LLP, Kelowna

Using Unjust Enrichment as a Remedy in Estate Litigation

• current state of the law
• when is this remedy most effective to plead
• elements of unjust enrichment
• joint family ventures after Kerr v. Baronow 2011 SCC 10

Andrew S. MacKay — Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang LLP, Vancouver

Networking Break

The Family Law Act in Trust and Estate Litigation

• the interplay between the FLA and WESA
• loss of estate rights upon spousal separation
• what constitutes separation
• “family violence” under the FLA: a new tool in relation to vulnerable adults?

Anna Laing — Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Vancouver

Protecting Vulnerable Adults

• the PGT’s role
• the new provisions under the Adult Guardianship Act
• available community resources

Leanne Dospital — Regional Manager, Services to Adults, Public Guardian and Trustee of BC, Vancouver
Sarah Watson — Solicitor to the Public Guardian and Trustee, Services to Adults, Public Guardian and Trustee of BC, Vancouver

Kimberly Wallis Speaking About Rectification at Okanagan Wills and Trusts CBA Section Meeting

My partner Kim Wallis will be speaking this Wednesday, September 17, 2014, on the topic of rectification including the new provision, section 59, in the Wills, Estates and Succession Act on rectification of wills, to the Okanagan Wills and Trusts section of the Canadian Bar Association. The meeting is open to members of the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. Branch.

Speaking Engagements

I have a number of upcoming speaking engagements, the preparation for which is taking up the time I would have spent on a more substantive blog post this week.

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014, I will be speaking on “Delusions and Testamentary Capacity,” at the Canadian Bar Association, Okanagan Wills and Trusts Subsection. This is open to subsection members.

On Wednesday, February 26, 2014, I will be speaking about wills and estate planning at Seniors Outreach, 102-2055 Benvoulin Court, Kelowna, B.C. at one of their Seniors Coffee Break meetings from 10:00 to 11:30 am.  This is open to interested seniors, but please call (250) 861-6180 to register as seating is limited.

On Wednesday, March 5, 2014, Kim Wallis and I will be presenting on the new Wills, Estates and Succession Act to RBC financial advisors.

On Monday, March 17, 2014, Keith Sabey and I will be speaking about wills and estate law to a University of British Columbia Okanagan political science law class.

On April 15, 2014, Kim Wallis and I will be making our Wills, Estates and Succession Act presentation at the Kelowna Estate Planning Society meeting.

On Saturday May 3, 2014, I will be making a case comment (not sure which case yet) at the CBABC Wills and Trusts Sections Joint Conference and Retreat 2014. Registration information is available here.

On Tuesday, May 6, 2014, Geoff White and I will take our “Battle of the Lawyers” presentation on the road to Vancouver for a joint meeting of the CBA, Vancouver Wills and Trusts section and the Vancouver Estate Planning Council. 

That’s all for the foreseeable future.

Canadian Bar Association National Wills, Estates and Trusts Section

I attended the National Wills, Estates and Trusts Section of the Canadian Bar Association executive meeting in Ottawa last Saturday, October 26, 2013.

The meeting consists of the Officers (I’m Treasurer this year), an Executive Member and the chairs of provincial Wills, Estates and Trusts sections from across Canada, as well as CBA staff.

Our section is active in professional education programs for lawyers; we publish a newsletter with articles of national interest, called The Last Word, and we also produce Succession Law Tables of Concordance. The latter is a table with comparisons of law and procedure among all of the Provinces and Territories, and is available to Canadian Bar Association members and subscribers through Carswell.

More importantly for the public, we are active in legislation and law reform. I will mention three matters we have been involved in during the last couple of years.

We have made submissions to the Tax Policy Branch, Finance Canada, suggesting changes to the Income Tax Act to facilitate charitable giving. As set out in our letter of May 2, 2012,

We are writing to propose six technical amendments to the Income Tax Act (ITA) to make the tax treatment of charitable giving more flexible, and relieve donors from a number of technical obstacles to tax-effective charitable giving. Sophisticated tax advice is required for prospective donors to overcome these obstacles, without which tax-driven conditions result that do not necessarily reflect the donor’s charitable intention. The proposed amendments are not intended to result in additional tax benefits for charitable giving, but rather make the existing rules and tax benefits of charitable giving more equitable, intuitive, accessible and rewarding.

The letter contains six very specific proposed technical changes to deal with the problems our members and their clients have encountered in estate-planned charitable giving.

Our Section has also written to Canada Revenue Agency about concerns that Canada Revenue Agency is on occasion inappropriately refusing to issue a final clearance certificate to an executor or other personal representative unless the personal representative has remitted from the estate Canada Pension Plan deductions from the personal representative’s remuneration. Clearance certificates are important because they protect personal representatives for claims for unpaid taxes by the deceased after the personal representative has distributed the estate. This practice by Canada Revenue Agency of requiring remittance of Canada Pension Plan deductions appears to be based on a misconception of the law, and creates unnecessary administrative costs and delays in distributing estates. You can read our letter here.

Thirdly, we are working on submissions to the Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance in response to the Government’s invitation to respond to proposals to tax income earned and retained in testamentary trusts at the highest marginal tax rate, instead of the current graduated rates. I have written about the Government's proposed changes and my personal views of them in this blog here and reported on the opportunity to make submissions here.

We have not yet completed the draft submissions, but I hope to provide a link to our proposals once they are completed and published on the Canadian Bar Association website.

Canadian Centre for Elder Law Celebrates Tenth Anniversary on Seniors Day, October 1, 2013

The Canadian Centre for Elder Law is celebrating its 10th anniversary on Tuesday, October 1, 2013, from 2:00 pm to 6:30 pm, at the Segal Centre, Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.

This event is also the launch of the Older Women's Dialogue Project Report.

Admission is free, put please register by emailing Sarah Chao at schao@bcli.org.

The program is as follows:

Event Highlights

The Future of Aging: Ted style talk by Rebecca Morgan, Director, Centre for Excellence in Elder Law, Stetson University on aging, caregiving and technology, followed by an interview with CBC’s Rick Cluff, host of the Early Edition

Performance by the Vancouver chapter of the Raging Grannies

Remarks by Honourable Alice Wong, Ministry of State (Seniors)

Launch of the report of the Older Women’s Dialogue Project

Greetings by Jay Chalke, Assistant Deputy Ministry, Department of Justice, BC

Speakers include:

2:15 – 2:30   Kelly Acker, Manager, Strategic Planning, BC Seniors’ Directorate, and Jane Lewis, Executive Director, BC Centre for Elder Advocacy and Support

2:30 – 2:45   Alison Leaney, Vulnerable Adults Community Response, Public Guardian and Trustee of BC

2:45 – 3:00   Sherry Baker, Executive Director, BC Association of Community Response Networks

3:00 – 3:15   Doug Melville, Ombudsman and Chief Executive Officer, Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments

3:15 – 3:30  Geoff White, Chair, National Elder Law Section, Canadian Bar Association

3:30 – 3:45  Older Women’s Dialogue Project, Kasari Govender, Executive Director, West Coast LEAF, Krista James, National Director, CCEL, Bev Pitman, Planner, Strategic Initiatives (Seniors), United Way Lower Mainland

For more information click here.

Trial Lawyers Association of B.C. Estate Litigation Seminar

The Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia is putting on a seminar on estate litigation on Friday, April 26, 2013 at the Hyatt Regency at Hotel, 655 Burrard St., Vancouver, British Columbia. The agenda and registration information is available here.

I will be on a discussion panel with Helen Low of Faskin Martineau DuMoulin LLP, and Kimberly-Anne Kuntz of Bull Houser & Tupper LLP. Our topic is "Avoiding the Big Pit: Practice Pitfalls in Estate Litigation."

Kimberly Wallis Speaking on Estate Planning For Blended Families at Okanagan College

Kimberly Wallis of Sabey Rule LLP will be teaching a course on Estate Planning for Blended Families at the Kelowna Campus of Okanagan College on March 7, 2013, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Here is a course summary:

When a new spouse enters the scene, families can become at odds over questions and concerns about the parent's estate. This course will look at the challenges that exist when your spouse is not the parent of your children, and will provide an easy-to-understand overview, from the layperson's perspective, of the tools and techniques that lawyers use to maximize the likelihood that your assets will pass to those whom you would wish to benefit from your estate

You can register online here: