Estate Planning and Administration
NOTICE TO CLIENTS AND OTHERS REGARDING COVID-19: Law firms in Ontario have been designated as essential services, and Legge & Legge is open for business. However, during the Covid-19 disruption most of our lawyers and staff will be working from home. Please use email as a means of contact as much as possible: our email addresses can be found under the tabs “Our Lawyers” and “Our Staff.” If you wish to leave a phone message please use the general voice mail option, as it will be monitored daily, and someone will return your call. If the matter is urgent please call Mary at 416-816-7526.
Only if necessary will appointments be scheduled to take place in the office. Otherwise appointments will take place over the phone or email or and occasionally outdoors—please ask. We are also able to conduct document signing remotely over the internet in many cases.
Legge & Legge has one of the largest repositories of wills and trusts maintained by a small firm in Ontario. Our lawyers and staff provide estate planning and services to clients who wish to have a will, trust or powers of attorney drafted or revised. We also act in the area of estate administration as estate solicitors and estate trustees.
Some of the specific services we provide include: estate administration, incapacity and elder law, trust and estate planning, and will and power of attorney drafting. Outlined below are some of these services. Our primary estates lawyers are Mary Stokes, Christine Davidson, and Monica Zamfir.
ESTATE ADMINISTRATION
Legge & Legge has administered estates in Ontario for over forty years. We work closely with our clients and other professionals, including accountants, financial advisors, and bankers, to wind up estates smoothly and expeditiously, and to convert these into on-going testamentary trusts where the will so stipulates.
Executors, Trustees, Attorneys and Guardians
John Legge and Mary Stokes are experienced in acting as Executors, Trustees, Attorneys under powers of attorney and Guardians under orders of guardianship for individuals who do not have appropriate family members or others to perform these functions.
ELDER LAW and Incapacity Administration
See Elder Law/Elder Care under Our Services
Wills, TRUSTs, POwers of Attorney
Estate planning involves discussing with our clients the impact that various alternatives will have on their estates when drafting a will, power of attorney or trust. Considerations include tax implications, domestic contracts, beneficiary designations, the role of the Office of the Children's Lawyer, the maintenance of children, the protection of beneficiaries with a current or potential disability, the requirements for bonds in cases of intestacy or out of jurisdiction trustees, and the possible consequences of family breakdown on the will, power of attorney, trust and eventual estate.
We believe professional estate planning and administration should be available regardless of means. Feel free to ask about fees.
Our lawyers and staff are happy to make house calls or hospital visits when necessary or requested* (Covid-19 may require some changes to this policy, but we will try to accommodate clients and their attorneys by remote or outdoor meetings).