Wills, Estates, Trusts Law

The applicant sought to set aside transactions that made the respondents joint tenants of her deceased father's home, and to declare his 1995 will invalid, alleging he lacked English comprehension and was subject to undue influence.

The court found the deceased had testamentary capacity, understood English sufficiently to make his will and execute the transfers, and acted free from coercion.

The application was dismissed with costs, and the Certificate of Pending Litigation was dissolved.

The applicant brought a guardianship application regarding one of the respondents, which was dismissed.

The respondents sought costs.

The court found no reason to depart from the normal rule that costs follow the event.

The court awarded partial indemnity costs to the respondents, fixing the costs at $56,224.11 for one respondent and $44,000 for the other, payable by the applicant in three instalments.

The plaintiff parents sought an ex parte Mareva injunction to freeze funds they had previously gifted to their adult daughter, alleging she was dissipating the funds under the negative influence of her boyfriend.

The parents claimed the funds were held in trust or subject to a binding agreement restricting their use.

The court dismissed the motion, finding no serious issue to be tried or irreparable harm.

The court held that the daughter was the sole legal and beneficial owner of the funds upon turning 18, precluding the existence of a trust, and that any subsequent agreement regarding the funds' use was not legally binding or would only yield nominal damages.

The applicants and respondent are brothers involved in a dispute over their late father's estate.

The applicants, acting as estate trustees, and the respondent both brought motions for directions regarding various issues, including the validity of a codicil, alleged undue influence, accounting of personal property, and distribution of sale proceeds.

The court ordered that the disputed issues be litigated as an action, with the respondent as plaintiff and the applicants as defendants.

The court also ordered the parties to attend mediation prior to trial, with the costs of the mediator to be borne by the estate.

Following the death of their mother, two sisters engaged in protracted and acrimonious estate litigation involving allegations of fraud and undue influence.

The parties eventually settled all substantive issues at mediation, agreeing to divide the estate equally, but left the issue of costs to be determined by the court.

The court found that the plaintiff had unreasonably escalated the litigation and ignored reasonable settlement offers.

Finding exceptional circumstances that justified a costs award despite the settlement, the court ordered the plaintiff to pay $75,000 in costs to the defendant.

The applicant sought an order for directions to challenge his late mother's will, alleging undue influence and lack of capacity by his brother, the primary caregiver and sole residuary beneficiary.

The court initially declined to sign the consent order, questioning whether the applicant had met the 'minimal evidentiary threshold' required by Neuberger v. York to justify the expense and delay of a formal will challenge.

After hearing arguments, the court granted the order, heavily weighing the respondent's consent and a negotiated term that the applicant would personally fund the investigative steps, which satisfied the goals of proportionality and affordability.

In a family dispute over their mother's property, the defendant sister sought a Certificate of Pending Litigation.

The moving plaintiff sister sought an order permitting her to attend the cross-examination of their mother on her affidavit.

The court reviewed the law on excluding co-parties from examinations to prevent the tailoring of evidence or intimidation.

The court ordered that the moving plaintiff be excluded from the mother's cross-examination, directing that only counsel, an interpreter, and the mother be present.

The applicants, a mother and her adult daughter, sought dependant relief from the estate of the deceased under the Succession Law Reform Act.

The mother claimed to be the deceased's common-law spouse, and the daughter claimed the deceased demonstrated a settled intention to treat her as a child of his family.

The court dismissed the application, finding insufficient evidence that the mother and the deceased ever cohabited or lived together continuously for three years.

The court also found no settled intention by the deceased to treat the adult daughter as his own child.

The application was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondent estate.

The applicants, estate trustees for their deceased mother's estate, sought an order requiring their brother, the respondent, to vacate the deceased's home.

The respondent argued he was a tenant protected by the Residential Tenancies Act.

The court found no evidence of a landlord-tenant relationship and noted the deceased's will left the property to the applicants.

The court ordered the respondent to vacate the property and pay $20,000 in occupation rent, plus maintenance costs and costs of the application.

The applicants sought court approval for the sale of two properties pursuant to a previous order under the Partition Act.

The court approved the sale of the first property to an arm's length purchaser for $550,000.

For the second property, the court approved a sale to a non-arm's length purchaser for $825,000, which was higher than a competing arm's length offer, subject to the arm's length purchaser's right to match the higher price within five days.

The applicant, the common-law spouse of the deceased, sought a declaration of an equal interest in their shared home via constructive trust, and dependency support under the Succession Law Reform Act.

The court granted the constructive trust claim, finding the applicant made significant financial contributions to the home's purchase and upkeep, establishing unjust enrichment.

However, the court dismissed the dependency support claim, ruling it was barred by the six-month limitation period and that the property had already vested in the respondent under the Estates Administration Act.

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment claiming $320,000 from her deceased ex-husband's estate.

The claim was based on a separation agreement that guaranteed her $1.5 million from the sale of a property, provided the deceased required her to accept an offer for less.

The plaintiff sold the property for $1.18 million without advising the deceased of the listing price or the offer before acceptance.

The court dismissed the action, finding that under the clear wording of the agreement, the deceased had the right to decide whether an offer under $1.5 million should be accepted.

The court also rejected the plaintiff's argument of promissory estoppel, finding the deceased's silence did not amount to a representation.

The moving party estate sought leave to appeal a motion judge's order dismissing its request to use off-reserve property to satisfy a $40,000 costs award in favour of the responding party wife.

The underlying family law dispute involved claims for spousal support and equalization against the deceased husband's estate, which included both on-reserve and off-reserve property.

The court denied leave to appeal, finding no conflicting decisions and no reason to doubt the correctness of the motion judge's decision that enforcement issues should follow, rather than precede, a determination of entitlement on the merits.

The plaintiffs, representing the estate of a deceased real estate developer, brought a motion for further documentary discovery from the defendants, representing the estate of his deceased business partner.

The dispute centered on the calculation of a 'net profit share' under a 2003 agreement.

The plaintiffs sought extensive financial records to challenge the defendants' auditor's valuation, which found a net loss.

Applying the principle of proportionality under the Rules of Civil Procedure, the Master ordered partial production of the requested documents, limiting the scope to the specific project in dispute rather than all related projects.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of the defendants' liability for professional negligence in failing to advise them of the 21-year deemed disposition rule under the Income Tax Act regarding a family trust.

The defendants admitted breach of the standard of care but disputed causation, arguing the third-party accountants were responsible, and brought a cross-motion to have causation and damages heard together with the third-party claim.

The court granted the plaintiffs' motion, finding no genuine issue for trial on liability as the 'but for' test for causation was met against the defendants.

The court dismissed the defendants' cross-motion, holding that the third-party action could proceed independently and should not delay the plaintiffs' main action.

Section 3 counsel brought a motion to vary a previous order regarding the guardianship of an incapable person, after the appointed guardian of personal care (the incapable person's daughter) indicated she would seek outside employment and hire professional caregivers instead of providing full-time personal care herself without compensation, contrary to the guardianship plan she had filed.

The court found that the daughter's actions escalated the litigation and that she put her own interests ahead of her mother's.

However, because the mother was thriving under the daughter's full-time care, and the daughter threatened to cease providing care if not appointed guardian and compensated, the court varied its previous order to allow for the daughter's compensation.

To mitigate conflict of interest and ensure the mother's best interests, the court appointed the daughter and one of her brothers as joint guardians of personal care.

The plaintiff brought a motion for directions in an estate matter.

The only remaining issue to be decided was costs.

The court found that the motion should never have been brought and was the result of an aggressive, unreasonable, uncompromising, and shifting strategy adopted by the plaintiff's counsel.

The court awarded partial indemnity costs to the respondents, noting that counsel's actions resulted in significant unnecessary costs.

The applicant sought an order declaring a photocopy of the deceased's will valid and appointing herself as the sole estate trustee, removing the respondent siblings due to an alleged conflict of interest.

The respondents consented to the validity of the will but opposed their removal as trustees.

The court found that while the parties disagreed on the valuation and handling of certain corporate preference shares, this disagreement did not amount to a conflict of interest or sufficient hostility to override the testator's choice of trustees.

The application to remove the respondents was dismissed, and all three siblings were appointed as joint estate trustees.

The applicant, acting personally and as executor of his mother's estate, sought an assessment of his former law firm's accounts totaling over $190,000.

The core dispute was whether the law firm provided competent advice when it recommended commencing a lawsuit and an interlocutory motion against the applicant's brothers to have jointly held assets paid into the estate, primarily to leverage higher executor's compensation.

The court found that the motion was ill-advised, unlikely to succeed, and of no value to the client, as the underlying issues could have been resolved through a passing of accounts.

The court ordered the law firm to repay $73,000 in fees and disbursements related to the motion, while approving the balance of the accounts.

The applicant sought a certificate of appointment as estate trustee for the primary will of the deceased.

A previous court order had rectified the deceased's secondary will, finding that the deceased had not read it.

The court held that it had the inquisitorial jurisdiction to require both wills to be proven in solemn form, despite the lack of a formal objection to the secondary will.

Applying issue estoppel, the court was bound by the previous finding that the deceased did not read or approve the secondary will, rendering it invalid.

The validity of the primary will was ordered to be determined at a short trial.