Estate planning in Toronto
Toronto estates are the ones where the arithmetic gets uncomfortable fastest, because the single largest asset is almost always a house that was bought for a fraction of what it is now worth.
What an estate in Toronto is usually made of
A Toronto estate is frequently property-heavy and cash-poor: a house, perhaps a second property, and not enough liquidity to settle the tax without selling something. That is a solvable problem, but only before the fact.
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What probate would cost on a $1,800,000 estate here
Ontario charges estate administration tax at nothing on the first $50,000 and $15 on every $1,000, or part of $1,000, above it. Take $1,800,000, which in Toronto is often a house and a small portfolio, with no second property.
$26,250 is payable before the estate is distributed, not out of it. When most of an estate is tied up in one asset, and here it usually is, that is money the family has to find before anything can be shared out. Making sure it is there is most of what the planning does.
- The estate$1,800,000
- Less the first $50,000, which is not taxed$1,750,000
- Divided into thousands, rounding a part up1,750
- At $15 each$26,250
Where that usually starts in Toronto
Asked in Toronto
Where is a Toronto estate probated?
In Toronto. The City of Toronto is its own court region, so an application for a certificate of appointment for a Toronto resident is filed with the Superior Court of Justice here rather than in a surrounding region. It is the one part of a Toronto estate that does not involve leaving the city.
I own the house and a condo I rent out. Does that change anything?
It changes a great deal. A second property is fully inside the estate for probate purposes, it carries deferred capital gains that come due on death, and it is the asset families most often have to sell in a hurry. The planning is about making sure the estate has the cash to pay what is owed so the sale is a decision rather than a necessity.
Ehsan Khandaker is a licensed financial and estate planner, CLU and CHS. He is not a lawyer and does not draft documents. This page is general information about Ontario rules, not guidance about your own situation, and a will is drawn up by a lawyer.
Every area he works inThe first conversation is twenty minutes, and it costs nothing wherever in Ontario you are.