✧ “He owned real estate, bank accounts, life insurance, and RRSP, but left nothing to his estate, I got nothing as a beneficiary under his will”. Is such a situation possible?
✧ Yes, it’s quite possible, that not all assets of the deceased pass through their estate. It’s important to understand which assets form the estate. It will help to avoid the situation when one of the beneficiaries (let’s say one of the children) gets much more than the others if it is not the intention of the testator.
✧Assets that are held jointly with the right of survivorship may go directly to the joint tenant(s), and those with individuals named as beneficiaries may bypass the estate as well.
✧ Assets held individually that do not or cannot have beneficiaries, or when the estate is named as the beneficiary, will comprise an estate.
✧ The most common estate assets are individually owned bank and investment accounts, real estate, private company shares, and personal effects.
✧ It might happen that it was the testator’s intention to leave certain assets to the beneficiary but the testator did not realize that all his/her assets already had designated beneficiaries.
✧ If you feel that it’s time to get a clear understanding of who will inherit your assets, give us a call, one consultation might help.