According to the decision, Stewart\u2019s will provided for a life estate for his wife, with the farm properties to be sold to his sons for fixed prices set out in the will \u2014 $50,000 for one property and $90,000 for the other.<\/p>\n
Complications arose because Stewart\u2019s wife outlived him by more than 24 years. During that time, the value of the farm properties rose significantly, to $617,500 and $1.12 million respectively. After her death in 2018, the estate faced more than $600,000 in tax liabilities linked to the disposition of the properties. The Canada Revenue Agency placed a lien on the farms and threatened to seize and sell them to recover the taxes.<\/p>\n
The estate trustee sought court approval to sell the properties to cover the debts, including the CRA\u2019s tax claim. This was opposed by Stewart\u2019s surviving son and his late brother\u2019s widow, who argued that the sales would void the original gifts and that they should still be able to purchase the farms at the prices specified in the will.<\/p>\n
The Superior Court sided with the trustee, ruling that she could sell the properties and was not bound to accept the original sale prices \u2014 which could have left her personally liable for the estate\u2019s debts.<\/p>\n
The Ontario Court of Appeal has now upheld that decision, rejecting a motion for a stay from the heirs.<\/p>\n
According to the appeal court, the heirs want the trustee to avoid selling the properties outright and instead work out an arrangement that would allow them to retain the farms while the estate pays off its debts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems that [the heirs] believe they can best jockey for that outcome if the estate trustee remains in possession of the farms and they are in a position to exercise their options under the will,\u201d the court noted. However, it found they failed to demonstrate grounds for a stay.<\/p>\n
The court concluded that the heirs did not establish that they would suffer \u201cirreparable harm\u201d if the stay were not granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe farms are not, on the facts, \u2018unique.\u2019 The issues appear to be all financial, leading to the conclusion that there is no irreparable harm,\u201d the ruling stated.<\/p>\n
The court also held that the \u201cbalance of convenience\u201d favoured the estate trustee, who argued that a stay would increase the risk of CRA seizure and raise costs for the estate.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the Court of Appeal dismissed the motion, concluding: \u201cThere is no serious question to be decided for which a stay is required; the ground of irreparable harm has not been established; and the balance of convenience favours the estate trustee\u2019s position.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the decision, Stewart\u2019s will provided for a life estate for his wife, with the farm properties…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-39064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}