Kelowna lawyer found to have misappropriated $54K in estate funds<\/p>\n
Published 12:54 pm Wednesday, March 25, 2026<\/p>\n
A Kelowna-based lawyer will no longer practice law after misappropriating funds from an estate he represented.<\/p>\n
Donald L. Wilkinson, a wills and estates lawyer, was found by the Law Society of British Columbia in a consent agreement to have misappropriated around $54,000 from a deceased client\u2019s estate to himself and the deceased\u2019s granddaughter in the form of legal fees.<\/p>\n
The deceased had passed in April 2019, leaving behind an estate with around $1.2 million.<\/p>\n
From Nov. 5, 2020, to Feb. 27, 2023, Wilkinson paid $25,392 to himself from the deceased\u2019s estate in the form of executor and management fees. The law society said Wilkinson was \u201cnot entitled to some or all of those funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the same time period, Wilkinson had \u201cincorrectly advised\u201d the deceased\u2019s granddaughter \u2013 referred to in the consent agreement as BB \u2013 that she was entitled to fees for acting as the deceased\u2019s attorney. She had been appointed as a co-executor of her will before later renouncing her appointment.<\/p>\n
In 2019, Wilkinson had told BB she was entitled to fees worth two per cent of the deceased\u2019s estate as well as compensation for expenses she incurred during this time.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 5, 2020, BB was sent three cheques totalling $30,502 for her services.<\/p>\n
The law society investigated Wilkinson\u2019s work, finding that he miscalculated his own fees and improperly advised BB that they were entitled to their own fees after he was found \u201cfailing to review\u201d the deceased\u2019s last will, testament and enduring power of attorney (EPOA), nor did he review the provincial Trustee Act.<\/p>\n
Wilkinson had calculated and billed his executor fees using percentages of the deceased\u2019s estate, which was valued at around $1.2 million. In the deceased\u2019s will, it stated that Wilkinson\u2019s executor fees were to \u201cbe determined on an hourly basis\u201d, not based on a percentage of the deceased\u2019s will.<\/p>\n
His management fees also \u201cfailed to review\u201d a section of the provincial Trustee Act, which states that management fees cannot exceed \u201c0.4 per cent of the average market value of the assets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilkinson had calculated his fee, taking 0.8 per cent of the gross value of the deceased estate. As a result, he took an additional $10,885, which he was not entitled to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the deceased\u2019s EPOA, there was no clause stating the attorney should be compensated, meaning BB was not entitled to her compensation.<\/p>\n
The consent agreement stated that because of the misappropriation of funds, the \u201cresiduary beneficiaries (of the estate) received a smaller bequest than they were entitled to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The law society stated that Wilkinson was cooperative with their investigation and admitted that his actions constituted misconduct, expressing remorse.<\/p>\n
It was also stated that some of the misunderstandings may have derived from Wilkinson delegating the review of the deceased\u2019s EPOA and will to his legal assistant, whom he did not \u201cproperly supervise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The consent agreement stated that Wilkinson has since stopped practicing law, resigning from the law society as a result.<\/p>\n
Wilkinson is not expected to apply for reinstatement, being \u201cpast the usual age of retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelowna lawyer found to have misappropriated $54K in estate funds Published 12:54 pm Wednesday, March 25, 2026 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":["post-567055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}