Estate Planning
Comprehensive estate planning strategies for high-net-worth families — protecting assets, minimizing taxes, and ensuring your legacy transfers exactly as you intend.
Schedule a Confidential Estate Planning ReviewOur Philosophy
"Estate planning isn't about death. It's about maintaining control over your wealth — during your lifetime and beyond."
Most Canadians with significant wealth have a will and perhaps a power of attorney. But for high-net-worth families, a will alone leaves millions of dollars in potential tax liability on the table and critical decisions to chance.
We work with your legal and tax advisors to build an integrated estate strategy that minimizes the tax burden on your estate, protects your assets from creditors and litigation, and ensures your wealth reaches the people and causes you care about — in the way and on the timeline you choose.
This isn't a one-time document. It's a living strategy that evolves with your family, your holdings, and Canadian tax law.
What We Cover
Every estate plan we develop is custom-built around your specific family structure, asset mix, and objectives. Here's what a comprehensive engagement typically includes.
Family trusts, alter ego trusts, joint partner trusts, and testamentary trusts designed to control timing of distributions, protect assets from creditors, and achieve significant tax deferral or savings for your beneficiaries.
Strategies to minimize the deemed disposition at death — including estate freezes, capital gains exemption planning, charitable donation strategies, and coordination between registered and non-registered assets.
For business owners: structuring the transition of your company through buy-sell agreements, corporate reorganizations, insurance-funded buyouts, and lifetime capital gains exemption optimization.
Using corporate-owned and personally-owned life insurance to fund tax liabilities at death, equalize inheritances between active and non-active family members, and create tax-free capital dividends for your corporation.
Donor-advised funds, charitable remainder trusts, gifts of appreciated securities, and private foundations — structured to maximize the impact of your giving while providing meaningful tax benefits to your estate.
For families with assets or beneficiaries in multiple countries: coordination of Canadian estate law with US, UK, and other international jurisdictions to avoid double taxation and conflicting legal requirements.
Real-World Scenarios
Every client situation is different. Here are common scenarios where our estate planning work creates significant, measurable value.
Business Owner
A business owner preparing to sell a $4M company faces a potential $800K+ tax bill. Through an estate freeze, lifetime capital gains exemption, and corporate reorganization executed well before the sale, we restructure the outcome.
Result: Tax liability reduced by over $420,000 through advance planning
Blended Family
A couple in a second marriage — each with children from previous relationships — needed a plan that provided for the surviving spouse without disinheriting either set of children. A testamentary spousal trust solved it.
Result: Surviving spouse receives income for life; capital preserved for children on both sides
Physician
A physician with significant retained corporate earnings needed to extract wealth tax-efficiently while protecting assets from potential malpractice claims. An individual pension plan combined with corporate insurance provided the solution.
Result: $1.2M moved to creditor-protected vehicles with significant tax deferral
Cross-Border
A Canadian couple with adult children living in the United States face potential double taxation on their estate. We coordinate Canadian and US tax counsel to restructure their holdings and update their wills for both jurisdictions.
Result: Eliminated risk of double estate taxation on $3.2M in cross-border assets
How It Works
Estate planning requires careful coordination between your portfolio, your tax advisor, your lawyer, and your family's goals. Here's how we approach it.
We map your complete financial picture: assets, liabilities, family structure, existing documents, tax situation, and objectives for wealth transfer.
Working with your legal and tax professionals, we design an integrated estate strategy that addresses tax exposure, asset protection, and distribution objectives.
We coordinate with lawyers, accountants, and insurance advisors to execute each component — trusts, corporate structures, insurance policies, and portfolio adjustments.
Tax law changes, families evolve, and asset values shift. We review your estate plan annually and adjust proactively — not reactively.
A confidential estate planning review with our team will identify the gaps in your current plan and the opportunities to preserve more of your wealth for your family.
Schedule Your Estate Planning ReviewNo cost. No obligation. Completely confidential.