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The cottage has its own family history. There is the mark on the doorframe from the summer everyone grew, the cupboard of mismatched mugs and the bedroom that is still called Grandma’s room.
So when someone says, “We should keep this place in the family,” it is easy for everyone to agree.
What they may be agreeing to is less clear.

Your will is only one part of your estate plan. Older RRSP and life insurance beneficiary designations can still determine where significant assets go after your death. Reviewing these forms alongside your will can help uncover outdated choices or inconsistencies. Keeping both up to date helps ensure your estate plan reflects your current wishes.That is a lovely starting point. But does her building allow dogs? Could she manage his medication? And if you were in hospital tonight, would anyone know where you keep the spare key?

Everyone knows your sister loves your dog. She brings treats, remembers his birthday and has said more than once that she would take him in a heartbeat.
That is a lovely starting point. But does her building allow dogs? Could she manage his medication? And if you were in hospital tonight, would anyone know where you keep the spare key?

For Manitoba families, digital estate planning is now part of ordinary estate planning. You do not need cryptocurrency or an online business for it to matter. An email account and a phone can hold much of the information someone will need to settle your affairs.

You still remind them to book the dentist. You may be paying their tuition, helping with rent or answering a text about whether the chicken in their fridge is still good. Then you call to sort out an account for them and hear: “We need to speak with the account holder.”

A Manitoba business owner called us in March, four days before he was supposed to close on a piece of equipment financing. His bank had asked for his minute book. He asked us what a minute book was.

A Winnipeg contractor came in to do his will. Forty-eight, two kids, a wife who’d been asking him to do this for three years. He’d finally booked the appointment because a guy he knew from the industry had died at fifty-one and it had rattled him.

A man in his fifties sat in our office with a set of keys on the table between us. His mother’s house in East Kildonan. He’d grown up in it. She’d died in April, he was the executor and one of three beneficiaries, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with a house.

A widow in Transcona came in three weeks after her husband died. She brought a folder with the will, the mortgage papers, and a title search she’d printed off because someone told her to. She wanted to know how long it would take to put the house in her name.

A man in East Kildonan dies in his sixties without a will. He owned his house, had some savings, and everyone in the family assumed it would all go to his wife. They had been together for decades. Then his adult kids learn that under Manitoba law, in some situations, his wife does not automatically inherit everything. There is a formula, the province wrote it, and it decides who gets what.