Elderlaw is a strange legal creature with its own rules and requirements, dealing with the person and the assets of the elderly and what to do with those assets once death occurs.
The dreaded Trust Law Chamber, where many a poor law student or lawyer has been lost or become insane. This is the worst of the worst of the bastions and relics of English law still existing. A mish-mash of statute law and ancient case law, trust owes its origin to, gasp, equity! So some knowledge of equity is required. We have tried to simplify the law of trusts in Canada throughout these pages.
When an adult loses the ability to manage their afairs, the law provides for a White Knight to be appointed, as an adult guardian. But the measure is exceptional as it strips the incapable adult of virtually all his/her legal rights.
So much is, can and should be done via agents in today's complex international commercial world. This article gives you an "in's and out's" of this branch of the law; the law of agents and of agency. At the table are agents, principals and third-parties.
Many a crank or mad scientist or Hollywood director have agonized over the potential for one human being to clone him/herself. Yet they need look no farther than the law of power of attorney to see it done as a power of attorney clones the donor and creates a clone, capable of walking the streets of Dodge and engaging the donor at every turn.
For some reason, the administration of estates in British Columbia has escaped all the plain language police and remains a very entrenched bastion of archaism, as anybody who has tried to probate an estate will know. Procedure evens differs from Supreme Court registry to registry! Regretably, this means you'd be foolish to try to run the estate application through the Court by yourself unless you are independently wealthy or a member of Mensa; preferably both. It does not have to be this way but it is so unless the estate is small, I can only advise strongly that you seek the assistance of a lawyer (preferably this one!). Lloyd Duhaime, May 2001.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder ... and the law crazy! Rudderless property and rights create slow but certain havoc, a confusing state of affairs that the law remedies.
BC has emerged from the Dark Ages of Elder Law and provided their citizens with the option of Representation Agreements; complex document in which an adult may preselect a person to make personal and health care decisions for them in the unfortunate but sometimes inevitable event where the adults cannot make those decisions for herself.
As you quickly walk away from the chocolate cookie tray your wife specifically told you not to touch until after supper, you hear the Voice bellow down from Above: "You! I saw that! I will punish you severely unless you can ... recite the rule against perpetuities". You're a little shady on the Book of Genesis but you remember enough to think this Guy is not someone to fool with. Well, relax, let us save your life. You've come to the right place.
The saga of the lost will, a much maligned story in the law of wills but and - oh! - such a real threat when, as it too often does in estate law, money rears its ugly head and makes decent folk turn crook and perjurer.
aka ... "When More Than One Cook Shows Up For Kitchen Duty". What to do when the widow, the kids and the nice old lady next door all show up at the Court house seeking to administer Dad's estate?
In God's country, aka British Columbia, Canada, wills are, as elsewhere, the primary legal document in which to give marching orders in respect to a person's estate, which includes debts and assets. This article looks at wills from a BC slant.