Friday, October 21, 2022 11 Brooklin Town Crier Support Your Local Business NO BETTER TIME THAN NOW TO SUPPORT OUR LOCAL ECONOMY TurnerMoore LLP Chartered Professional Accountants Licensed Public Accountants Alan Hogan CPA, CGA 62 Winchester Road E., Brooklin Providing a full range of professional accounting & taxation services. 905.655.8556 • www.turnermoore.com Family & General Dentistry Cosmetic Dentistry Oral Surgery Periodontics • Orthodontics www.brooklindentalcare.com 5969 BALDWIN ST. S., BROOKLIN 905.655.7117 www.rhaverylandscaping.com DREAM / CREATE / ENJOYWe Make Your Dreams Come Tru e! COMMERCIAL SNOW REMOVAL Brooklin TOWN CRIER .com Print Advertising Works You are reading this, aren't you? This space can be yours. Text or call 905.213.7403 A Tale of Two Codicils By Sophie Hills of Hills Nolan A Codicil is a document made by a Testator (the person who makes a Will) that makes changes to the Testator's existing Will. Two recent cases involving Codicils made without a lawyer had different but equally bad outcomes for the families involved. Both involved a widowed Testator with three adult children. In both cases the Testator and his wife had, years before, made Wills with a lawyer leaving the estate of the survivor in equal shares to their three children. In the first case, one of the children prepared a Codicil that would have allowed him to purchase the family cottage from the father's estate at a deeply discounted price. The father resisted pressure to sign the Codicil, but didn't consult his lawyer about options for dealing with the son's wish to purchase the cottage. When the father was hospitalized at the end of his life the unsigned Codicil was discovered, and the other siblings realized what their brother had tried to do. When the father died the other siblings were not prepared to negotiate with their brother, and forced the sale of the cottage. In the second case, the father signed a Codicil (which was prepared by his daughter). He did not speak to a lawyer about the impact of the Codicil. The father had previously made his accounts joint with the daughter to reduce probate fees, but never changed his Will from equal shares. The homemade Codicil excluded the joint accounts from the father's estate and gave control of them to the daughter. When the father died the younger brother received his third of the estate in accordance with the father's Will (and the mother's wishes), but the older brother and the sister did not share the joint accounts with him, so he received much less than his siblings and far less than a third of the father's total wealth. In the first case the sibling involved in making the Codicil didn't gain anything financially but lost the chance to buy the cottage and damaged his relationship with his siblings. In the second case the siblings involved in making the Codicil gained financially, but lost their relationship with their younger brother, likely forever. I imagine that neither father would have wished his children to be estranged. The lesson from both cases is that Testators need to seek legal advice so that income tax and probate fees can be minimized, and their wishes carried out, but without "homemade" changes that can cause irreparable damage to family relationships. For a copy of the publication "What Every Older Canadian Should Know about Powers of Attorney and Joint Bank Accounts" please contact our office at 905- 571-1774 or call 1-800-O-Canada.