NEXsteps: Estate Planning and Executor Support

Nancy Boisvert, CEA
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Estate planning and executor support for Canadians, from Certified Executor Advisor Nancy Boisvert. Each week, I cover questions about wills, executors, and probate, talked through the way I would with a client. I've been an executor and a power of attorney myself, so this isn't theory. Longer written articles support this podcast and interactive self-guided tools are at nexsteps.ca. My book, The Last Executor Guide You'll Ever Need, is available there and through Amazon and Kobo. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

  1. 6d ago

    Your Executor Lives Somewhere Else. Now What?

    You named your daughter as executor. She's organized, she's fair, and her brothers trust her completely. She's also lived in Phoenix for eleven years, and nobody thought to ask what that would mean.  In this week's episode I look at what happens when the person named to settle an estate lives somewhere other than where the estate will be settled: What a Canadian court asks of them before they can act. Where the line gets drawn, province by province and territory by territory, and why it isn't drawn in the same place everywhere. How Quebec approaches the same question under the Civil Code. And the tax question sitting underneath it all, which is where the estate itself is considered to be managed once the person making the decisions is making them from another country. None of this means you can't name the person you trust most. It means you should name them knowing what you're handing them. The article closes with the options that are actually open to you, and the conversation worth having before anything gets signed. Read the full article.  Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    Your Executor Lives Somewhere Else. Now What?

  2. Sep 24

    The CPP Death Benefit Nobody Claims

    Three months into settling her mother's estate, Alison sat looking at a line on her own checklist that said "CPP death benefit," and couldn't tell whether she'd done it or not. She had every reason to think it was handled. The funeral home had taken care of so much in those first days that she'd stopped tracking which agencies still needed something from her. In this episode I'm covering what changed with the CPP death benefit on January 1, 2025, and why the new maximum reaches far fewer estates than the headlines suggest. Two people in the same family, with nearly the same work history, can leave estates that receive very different amounts, and the reason has nothing to do with how much either of them paid in. I also get into the 60 day rule. Nearly everything written about this calls it a deadline for claiming the money, and that isn't what the legislation says. The difference matters a great deal if you're already past it. And in the article I talk about the piece of paperwork families assume the funeral home filed, where Quebec's rules go their own way, and why $5,000 is never really $5,000 by the time it reaches anybody. All is in the full article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    The CPP Death Benefit Nobody Claims

  3. Sep 17

    Unclaimed Bank Balances: Dormant accounts don't disappear

    Curtis closed his father's estate the way a careful person does. He worked from the folder his father left behind, closed every account listed in it, filed the terminal return, got the clearance certificate, and told his sister the cheques were coming. Eleven months later he learned about an account that had never been in the folder, and hadn't been at his father's bank for years. In this episode I get into where money actually goes when an account sits untouched long enough, and why almost no executor checklist in Canada tells you to go looking for it. There's a national registry. Four provinces run registries of their own for the money that never reaches the national one, and each of those provinces plays by different rules on deadlines and fees. There are two more free searches beyond that which most people have never heard of. In the article, I also cover the practical side of claiming: who's allowed to file on behalf of an estate, what documents you need, how long it takes, and a timing trap that catches executors who are still waiting on their grant. And I answer thequestion that comes up every time this subject does, which is what to do if you find the money after the estate has already been closed and distributed. Everything in this episode is free to do. All of it together takes about ten minutes. Read the full article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    Unclaimed Bank Balances: Dormant accounts don't disappear

  4. Sep 10

    Crypto and Probate: The Wallet No Court Can Open

    She had the grant of probate. She had the death certificates. She had a lawyer, a binder with tabs, and every piece of paperthe process asks for. She also had a small black device her father kept in a dresser drawer, and none of it opened that. This episode is about the difference between two kinds of digital asset that almost nobody hears about until they're the one dealing with it. Some of what people own online can be reached with legal authority and enough persistence. But some of it can't be reached by anyone, ever, no matter what a court says or which jurisdiction you're in. I also get into the part that surprises families most: howthe tax bill can arrive for money the estate will never be able to touch. If you own crypto, or you've been trusted with somebodyelse's recovery phrase, this one matters more than you'd think. Read the full article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only andis not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    Crypto and Probate: The Wallet No Court Can Open

  5. Sep 3

    Did You Just Create A Trust - And Not Know It?

    A friend at church told Evelyn to put her daughter's name on the house title. When she was gone, the house would pass straight to her daughter. No court, no probate, no fuss. It took an afternoon and cost a few hundred dollars, and nobody asked whether her daughter was receiving half a house that day or simply having her name added to a piece of paper. That kind of arrangement has a legal name most people have never heard, and it can exist whether or not anyone meant to create it. The CRA reporting requirement around it was deferred three times, which is why almost nobody has looked at this since it first came up. It's back, and it's mandatory for tax years ending on or after December 31, 2026. Not every arrangement has to be reported, but the rules for which ones don't are easy to misread, especially where a house is involved. In this episode I get into what's actually going on with situations like Evelyn's, and why so many families find out too late. Read the article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    Did You Just Create A Trust - And Not Know It?

  6. Aug 27

    The Reason You Haven't Signed Your Will Just Expired

    Signing a will has always meant everybody in the same room at the same time. You, your spouse, two witnesses, and a good chunk of a weekday at a lawyer's office. For a lot of Canadians,that scheduling problem is the actual reason the will never got done. In four provinces, that requirement is now gone for good. Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia allow wills to be signed and witnessed over video on a permanent basis, with no emergency and no medical reason required. Most people assumed those pandemic measures lapsed years ago. In these four, they didn't. Quebec went adifferent direction through its notarial system, and across the rest of the country the traditional rules still apply. In this episode I get into what remote signing actually looks like, because it's more structured than it sounds. A lawyer is usually still involved. Signatures are still wet ink on paper in most cases. What changed is that nobody has to be in the same room on the same afternoon. I also get into the part that didn't change, and it's the part that keeps people stuck far longer than any calendar conflict. Who your executor is. What happens to the family cabin. Whether your RRSP beneficiary still names the person you think it does. No change in the law is going to answer those questions for you. Read the full article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    The Reason You Haven't Signed Your Will Just Expired

  7. Aug 20

    Same Estate, Same Will, $33,000 Difference

    Terrence and Yolanda moved from Calgary to a bungalow outside Halifax with their wills in a folder in the moving truck. Same estate, same wills, same executor. In Alberta the probate fee would have been $525. In Nova Scotia it's closer to $16,000. Nothing about the family had changed. The documents were current. What changed was the address. Probate isn't federal. Thirteen provinces and territories, thirteen sets of rules. Some cap the fee at a few hundred dollars no matter how large the estate gets. Others charge a percentage that climbs with every dollar. In this episode: How the capped and percentage systems work, and where each province sitsWhy Quebec runs on a different process, with a liquidator instead of an executorWhat happens when someone owns property in two provinces, and why that can mean two applicationsWhy the court fee usually isn't the biggest bill the estate faces Read the full article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    Same Estate, Same Will, $33,000 Difference

  8. Aug 14

    The Estate Planning Risk Nobody Measures

    Before anyone builds you an investment portfolio, they find out what you're willing to put up with, what you could actually survive, and whether both of those match what you say you want. Nobody skips it. Then the conversation gets to your estate and it comes down to two questions about a will and a power of attorney. This episode takes that framework and points it at estates instead. The problem shows up right away. A risk tolerance assessment only works because the person answering the questions is the person who has to live through the answer. Estate planning pulls that apart. You answer. Your executor, your spouse and your kids get the consequences, and they inherit a position you picked for them without ever being asked. This week, I take you through the three things worth measuring, including estate capacity, which isn't the same as mental capacity and gets confused with it constantly. Read the full article. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

    The Estate Planning Risk Nobody Measures
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About

Estate planning and executor support for Canadians, from Certified Executor Advisor Nancy Boisvert. Each week, I cover questions about wills, executors, and probate, talked through the way I would with a client. I've been an executor and a power of attorney myself, so this isn't theory. Longer written articles support this podcast and interactive self-guided tools are at nexsteps.ca. My book, The Last Executor Guide You'll Ever Need, is available there and through Amazon and Kobo. Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.

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