Assets division

[bob smith]

My parents divorced in May 2016. One of the requests by my mother was to keep half the stock my patents held. My father did not respond to the paperwork so she received full judgement on her request.

Sadly my mother passed away in September. My brother and I have another lawyer appointment in a week but we were wondering how her shares of stock are now divided. Do they belong to the estate? Their value needs to ensure probated here in ontario. Our father doesn't semester to understand they aren't husband shares anymore

Thank you

[arabian]

my experience with estates is pretty simple, however, I have to say I was shocked at the amount of money lawyers make.

Simply put - it is in the estate lawyer's best interest to have a hefty estate as the estate lawyer's fees (usually a %) are based on value of estate. Same goes for the executor's fee (% of estate).

So hopefully your family can shop around for estate lawyer. You will be dumbfounded by the amount of money the lawyer makes for basically filing a bunch of papers.

When my mother passed away a few years ago the lawyer kind of hounded me about a very inexpensive watch which she insisted had to be given a price/accounted for in the "estate." (est. 200.00 or less). The lawyer dutifully made many calls to me, had her assistant research value of similar watch, all the time racking up billable hours.

Where there is money left in an estate you will most definitely find lawyers. Kind of a free-for-all for them IMO.

Oh, and answer to your question: like family law, if there is a dispute (your father not agreeing to anything) you can bet that you will be charged not only a percentage of the estate but also lawyer's hourly rate. Lawyers will undoubtedly try to keep interested parties in dispute. In death, people act like assholes and lawyers take full advantage of this.

[Berner_Faith]

I am sorry to hear about the passing of your mother.

Was their divorced finalized? Did they have a separation agreement? I am going to assume you don't have a good relationship with your father or these questions wouldn't be necessary. As Arabian pointed out, lawyers will make money, so you have to decide if it is worth even going after if the amount is not great.

If there was a SA or court order for this split of assets to take place you may have a leg to stand on, but if your mother just requested this from your father and there was no agreement or court order, you may be out of luck.

[rockscan]

If she has a final order that the shares were awarded to her then they are hers and become a part of the estate.

From what our estate lawyer told us, with respect to family law orders, they will super cede the will. So if the shares were ordered to your father in family law then the estate must pay out the full value he is entitled to. If the new order prior to her death ordered that she have full value of the shares then they are part of her estate.

Hopefully she updated her will to reflect the impending divorce!!