{"id":401746,"date":"2026-04-20T13:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/401746\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:46:11","slug":"when-canadians-lose-a-parent-from-afar-managing-the-estate-can-get-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/401746\/","title":{"rendered":"When Canadians lose a parent from afar, managing the estate can get complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Neustockimages\/iStockPhoto \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

After Caitlin Walsh Miller\u2019s father passed away without a will in January, 2025, she and her siblings had to decide who would be appointed the administrator of his estate<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Her brother was the obvious choice: He lived in Fredericton, where her father\u2019s home was. But as medical professionals, both her brother and sister had carried the \u201creally heavy load\u201d of caring for her father, who had dementia, said Ms. Walsh Miller. So she volunteered for the job. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I could finally help the team,\u201d said Ms. Walsh Miller, a freelance journalist in Montreal. Before her father\u2019s death, she had been his power of attorney for his finances and property.<\/p>\n

However, managing his estate from Quebec came with challenges. While phone calls and paperwork could be handled remotely, banking was a different story. Every time she visited the Montreal branch of her father\u2019s bank, Ms. Walsh Miller said she struggled to have his New Brunswick documentation recognized.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an easy crier, so I cried in a lot of banks and that seems to get people,\u201d she said. \u201cYou already hear that very few people you deal with when you\u2019re acting as a power of attorney or executor are going to be well-versed in legalities. You\u2019re always explaining yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n

For Canadians taking care of aging parents from afar, distance compounds complexity<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadians who become the executors of a parent\u2019s estate are tasked with handling a significant administrative burden while grieving an often-shattering loss. Fulfilling those duties from another province or country presents additional hurdles, from navigating a new legal landscape to more practical considerations such as clearing out a parent\u2019s home. <\/p>\n

People underestimate how immediately \u201coperational and hands-on\u201d the role is, said Alysha Tse, a wealth adviser with Richardson Wealth Limited in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Executors\u2019 tasks can include securing their loved one\u2019s home and valuables, maintaining property insurance and making arrangements for any pets. \u201cThat\u2019s an urgent, immediate responsibility,\u201d Ms. Tse said, made more complicated for those coming from another province or country.<\/p>\n

A common consideration for cross-provincial executors is the estate\u2019s tax residency, said Leanne Kaufman, president and chief executive officer of RBC Royal Trust in Toronto. <\/p>\n

For tax purposes, someone\u2019s estate is considered a trust, and trusts are taxed based on where the \u201cmind and management\u201d of the trustee is located, she said. If a parent\u2019s estate was being handled by an adult child in another province with higher tax rates, the estate could end up being taxed at those higher rates.<\/p>\n

What this 85-year-old, seven-time executor can teach you about carrying out wills<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. Kaufman said travelling to the parent\u2019s home province to make estate decisions can help address that issue, but that can become costly, especially for complex estates that may take longer to settle. <\/p>\n

Different provinces have different probate rules and fees, said Amy Dietz-Graham, senior wealth adviser and portfolio manager with National Bank Financial Wealth Management in Toronto. Additionally, if a parent had properties or assets in multiple provinces, they would be subject to the probate process in all of those provinces. <\/p>\n

Some provinces may also require an out-of-province executor to post a bond of indemnity. This is essentially an insurance policy to protect heirs and beneficiaries from the possibility of the executor mismanaging the estate. But it can affect the executor\u2019s credit, Ms. Kaufman said.<\/p>\n

Beyond the hurdles faced by estate executors in other provinces, those with parents in another country must navigate a different legal system, possibly in another language.<\/p>\n

Rohini Mukherji, a Toronto-based public relations professional, had to handle her father\u2019s estate after he passed away three and a half years ago in Bangalore, India. India\u2019s legal system makes it easier for someone to pass assets to their children rather than to their spouse, Ms. Mukherji said. This is why, despite the fact that her father wanted to pass the family home on to her mother, his will instead left the property to Ms. Mukherji, his eldest child. <\/p>\n

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She had to first complete paperwork to prove that her father was of sound mind when he wrote his will, then spend a few days in court in Kolkata to transfer the property to her mother, all of which ended up being more complicated than expected. But Ms. Mukherji said she was \u201cglad for processes to be as slow as they were,\u201d because it gave her time and space to grieve. <\/p>\n

If a parent in another country names their child in Canada as their executor, their estate could become subject to Canadian taxes, said Rahul Sharma, a partner at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP in Toronto who focuses on cross-border and international trust and estate planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see this most often where the parent is a resident in Britain or the U.S. or whatnot and named their Canadian kids as executors over assets that are entirely outside of Canada,\u201d said Mr. Sharma.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery often people are missing excellent planning opportunities and bringing significant assets to the Canadian tax system\u201d that should have remained outside it, he said.<\/p>\n

There are also smaller challenges associated with dealing with a parent\u2019s estate abroad, he said, including issues at a municipal office over the family home, or even the type of identification cards different governments will accept.<\/p>\n

The best ways to talk through the tough task of planning for aging loved ones, according to our experts<\/a><\/p>\n

Hiring a corporate executor may make more sense for people whose preferred executor lives in a different province or country, Ms. Tse said. Corporate executors typically charge between 3.5 and 4 per cent of the estate\u2019s value, she said.<\/p>\n

In situations with multiple siblings, particularly if only one is local, splitting up executor duties can help manage the burden that might otherwise fall disproportionately to one person, Ms. Kaufman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t always a good appreciation in the planning process for the impact on the relationships of people who are left,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lizz Bryce and her two siblings shared caregiving duties for her father, who lived in Whitehorse, after he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer, and managed his estate together when he died in 2022. Ms. Bryce and her sister both live in Toronto, and her brother, who became their father\u2019s executor, lives in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Her father rented his house, so the three took turns flying up to empty it out in the additional month they had left on the rental, and also divided other tasks. They\u2019ve recently taken the same strategy to manage their uncle\u2019s estate after he died in November in Bracebridge, Ont. As his wife had already died, they\u2019ve been helping the rest of the family handle estate-related tasks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe split up as a team effort as much as we could \u2014 you cancel the hydro and you collect the mail, that kind of thing,\u201d Bryce said.<\/p>\n

Ms. Walsh Miller said she and her brother initially looked into being co-administrators on her father\u2019s estate, but it would have required them to both sign off on every document, adding unnecessary time and administrative tasks.<\/p>\n

But as she\u2019s dealing with her father\u2019s estate, which she said was complicated by his disorganization, she\u2019s grateful to be working on it with her siblings. \u201cWe\u2019re all on the same page and that made things easier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Neustockimages\/iStockPhoto \/ Getty Images After Caitlin Walsh Miller\u2019s father passed away without a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,85,46,266,267,3681],"class_list":{"0":"post-401746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance","14":"tag-r-fp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}