To the Editor,
I allege the following.
I, myself, just found on the internet that there was such a thing as a Mutual Will, which is far different from the Joint Wills most every family has had for years.
The Joint Will automatically gives the surviving partner full control of the family home if their spouse passes. This is fine if this was one marriage with only their children.
The problem when a Joint Will is taken out by what we now call a “blended family”, which my wife and I have as we both have a child from a previous marriage, which like most of us have seen one survivor leave everything to “his or her” children. This has been the way it was done since I was a child and I can still remember my mother saying how unfair it was.
I got my information by going to “Mutual Wills in Ontario” and several other sites and phoning lawyers in Hamilton and we are currently in the process of closing our Mutual Will.
Basically a Mutual Will is drawn up for each partner in a blended family and they make out who they each want their possessions to go to.
In their Mutual Will, it is written up that the partner who passes first, their Will, as I call it be ‘frozen’ and held until the other passes and then both their Wills are taken over by their Estate Trustees, to be divided up according to the wording in each Will.
Also it is written up that the surviving spouse gets to live in the Matrimonial Home but cannot access or sell any part of their deceased spouses Will until they pass also.
You will read that a Mutual Will is best used for seniors in blended families, but I believe this is the answer to a lot of blended families fairly handling their joint holdings fairly.
I would advise anyone interested in Mutual Wills to read up on it and get a lawyer who knows about them as I talked to two local lawyers and ended up going to a city lawyer who gave me a quote and stated he has experience doing some Mutual Wills.
Doug Wadel,
Dunnville
