Joint Ownership: No Longer Simple

​Mroz v Mroz and Sawdon Estate in the Ontario Court of Appeal

Joint ownership is common, easy and cheap to set up and surprisingly complicated in practice. Ontario charges estate administration tax at the rate of 1.5% per on the date of death value of the assets in an estate. It has become increasingly common for people to try to avoid this tax by putting assets in joint ownership with an adult child. Often, but not always, that adult child is expected to share the jointly owned assets with his or her siblings. Sometimes the joint owner does not meet the expectations of his or her parent. In other cases, where the joint owners are different than the heirs under a Will, the heirs may argue that the account belongs to the estate – not the joint owner and his or her siblings. Two recent cases in the Ontario Court of Appeal – Mroz v Mroz and Sawdon Estate – explore these possibilities, and highlight how important it is for advisors to understand the principles