If you don’t plan for your estate, it will be done for you. That process can take a toll in taxes, time and additional emotional stress for loved ones. Our goal is to make legacy planning a positive, life-affirming endeavour that leads to the preservation of your family values, good communication with all involved and the efficient transfer of your assets according to your wishes.

There are various instruments that work within your overall estate plan to provide certainty and control over everything you’ve worked for and accumulated during your lifetime. Examples include wills, trusts, insurance policies, and continuing/enduring powers of attorney for property or protection mandates. These instruments give you confidence that your legacy will be protected. Our team works with you to help ensure your wishes are documented through these instruments and that you can communicate effectively with your personal team of professionals.

Making charitable giving part of your financial and estate plan enables you to support the charities and causes you love, now and in the future. Moreover, having the right charitable giving strategy can help further your overall wealth management plan. Some options provide immediate or future tax deductions while others can provide a continuous income stream. In any case, our goal is to help ensure strategic and tax-efficient giving so that your charitable gifts don’t fail, and your estate or charitable beneficiaries receive what you intended with your gift.

Our trust services division, Raymond James Trust (Canada) (RJTC)*, draws on the deep expertise, experience and client understanding of our professionals to provide a full suite of trust services to help safeguard your legacy and ensure the wishes you have expressed in your will and other estate planning documents are realized. We can help make sure the people and causes you care about are provided for respectfully, responsibly and professionally through:

• Executor and executor support**
  • By appointing RJTC as executor and/or trustee of your estate, we can take on the full duties of an executor and provide professional, thoughtful administration of estates and trusts at all levels of complexity. If you are named executor, we can undertake all of the functional tasks of administering the estate for you. Our executor support services mean you are not alone in managing the many responsibilities of this challenging and critical role.
• Trustee and trustee support
  • We can serve as sole or joint trustee for a wide variety of trusts. We bring not only technical, tax and reporting experience, but, most importantly, impartiality to the administration of trusts. We can also provide support in an agency capacity to someone who is a trustee, lending our expertise to your administration. You’ve worked hard to build your wealth. Now it’s time to ensure it is protected and the desires you have outlined in your estate plan are carried out just as you want them to be. RJTC’s trust officers can help guide you to make the best decisions for you and your loved ones.
• Appointment under a power of attorney
  • As attorney under a power of attorney (POA), RJTC can undertake all aspects of financial administration when you are no longer able to do so. We can make sure bills are paid, taxes are filed, and your investments are managed, alleviating these burdens from your family and loved ones.
• Wills bank
  • When you appoint RJTC as your executor, we can provide secure storage of wills and other important documents.

This information is general in nature, and is intended solely for the purpose of illustrating conceptually how a particular estate planning technique might work, based on various assumptions. Whether the planning technique is appropriate for you will depend on your goals and your specific situation. Raymond James does not provide advice on tax, legal or mortgage issues. These matters should be discussed with an appropriate professional.

*Raymond James Trust Services are offered by Raymond James Trust (Canada) in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, and by Raymond James Trust (Québec) Ltd. in the province of Québec. Both entities are wholly owned subsidiaries of Raymond James Ltd. Trust Services are not covered by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

**Liquidator and liquidator support in Québec.