Advise Clients About Potential Forced Heirship

One of the fundamental goals clients have when they put wills in place is deciding the "who, what, when, where, why and how" of how to pass their property upon death.

The notion that we have complete liberty to give our property as we wish on death is known as "testamentary freedom," and it's unique to jurisdictions founded on the English common law system, including Canada's provinces and territories, excluding Quebec.

Most civil law jurisdictions in Europe and other countries throughout the world, however, embrace a far different ethic — one based on mandatory rules that fix a certain percentage of one's estate on death to various family members. In Canada, this type of regime is commonly referred to as "forced heirship."