Our special practice areas are real estate, wills, family-held corporations, and tax planning with emphasis on creditor-proofing clients’ assets and income in every transaction. To accomplish this goal, we make innovative use of reliable legal planning tools such as corporations, trusts, multiple wills, title tenure, mortgages, etc., with a constant focus on the reduction or outright elimination of any and all of the five kinds of taxes.

As an experienced property investor himself, Rick also works with real estate investor clients to assist them in creating new value for their properties through the creative use of opportunities for variances and zonings, obtaining permits and licenses, renovating or constructing buildings and other improvements, financing and leasing, corporate structures, etc.

We strive to give our clients thorough and prompt service, excellent results and good value for their money. Every file we handle is carefully considered for creditor-proofing and tax saving opportunities.

We deal with a wide variety of issues. A few examples of questions we get:

1. My wife and I are buying our first house and I am leaving my job to start a new business. How should we hold title and what about land transfer taxes?

2. Our daughter and her fiancé are buying a new house and we have agreed to help them with $50,000.00. How should this be structured?

3. If we sell the shares of our holding corporation which owns our commercial building, can we access the large capital gain exemption for income tax?

4. My mom is 75 and lives alone in her home which has become very valuable. How can she avoid probate tax on her death without losing her principal residence exemption for income tax?

5. All three of our kids love our cottage but they all have different abilities and financial means. What can we do in our Wills or even while we’re still alive to keep World War Three from starting after our deaths?

6. My accountant has advised me to incorporate my business. How can I set this up to get the most flexibility and income tax advantage? Can my spouse and children be shareholders? Employees?

7. I have never trusted my step-father and now he is refusing to show me my mother’s recent will which was done by a new lawyer he took her to. She is in the last stages of a terminal illness in the hospital and is heavily medicated. What can I do?

8. My wife and I are looking at buying a condo apartment in Collingwood, but the condo corporation has a facility sharing arrangement for a marina with two other condo developments nearby. We took a walk around the marina and noticed some huge armour stones on the shoreline have fallen away from the wall allowing waves and ice to erode the soil behind other stones. Could we be made to pay for huge marina repairs as unit owners? Are permits even available from the provincial and federal governments to make the repairs?

9. My partner is buying me out of our landscaping business but he wants our corporation to redeem my shares instead of him buying them directly. I would get half cash and half over five years with no interest. Are there any problems for me if I agree to his proposal about the shares?

10. Our accountant suggested to my husband and me that we should consider putting our adult daughter on title to our home with us to save probate/estate tax now that we are senior citizens. Would we still have complete control over our home? Would this jeopardize our principal residence exemption for income tax? What about our daughter’s own home and her principal residence exemption? Could we lose our home if she died or got into financial trouble?

Thank you for considering this firm.

Regards,

Richard B. Day

RBD/lavb