The Estate Planning Excuse That Doesn’t Hold Up Anymore

Levi had been meaning to update his will for three years. Not because anything was wrong with it, but because every time he thought about starting, his mind jumped straight to lawyers, appointments, and a to-do list that felt too big to fit into a normal week. So he kept putting it off. Not out of denial. Just out of a vague sense that it would take more time and effort than he had to give.

Financial columnist Christopher Liew covered this exact pattern in a recent CTV News piece, walking through the five estate planning steps Canadians delay the most. It’s worth reading if you haven’t. What it doesn’t spend much time on is the part that actually gets people moving: what does each step involve day to day, how long does it take, and where do people get stuck once they try?

Here’s the practical version.

Writing a will

This is the one everyone pictures first, and the one people delay longest. Realistically, it takes a few hours spread across a couple of sessions: gathering a list of your assets, deciding who gets what, choosing an executor, and then either meeting with a lawyer or working through a guided will preparation tool. The point that people get stuck on isn’t usually the legal part. It’s decision fatigue. People stall because they haven’t decided who should raise their kids, or they’re avoiding an awkward conversation about unequal inheritances. Those decisions take thought, but they don’t take forever once you sit down with them.

What tends to get lost in the delay is what happens if you never get there. Dying without a will means dying intestate, and the court in your jurisdiction decides who gets what using a fixed legal formula instead of your wishes. Someone still has to apply to the court for permission to administer the estate, which takes time and money that your family may not have to spare. And in several jurisdictions, a common-law partner has no automatic right to inherit anything, no matter how many years you were together. A will isn’t really about avoiding death. It’s about making sure a formula doesn’t make these calls instead of you.

Reviewing your beneficiary designations

This is the step with the best return on the least effort, and it’s the one people assume is complicated when it isn’t. Your RRSP, TFSA, pension, and life insurance policies all pass directly to whoever is named as beneficiary on file with the institution. That designation sits outside your will entirely, which means an out-of-date form can undo everything your will says and leave assets to people you no longer wished to receive them.

Reviewing this takes one phone call or one online form per institution, usually under fifteen minutes each. You’re not drafting anything. You’re confirming a name is still correct, and updating it if it isn’t. Most people have three to five accounts that need this check: a workplace pension, an RRSP or TFSA at your bank or investment firm, and any life insurance policies. An afternoon covers all of it.

One detail worth knowing before you make that call: on a TFSA, you can name your spouse as successor holder rather than just beneficiary. A successor holder takes over the account as-is and it keeps growing tax-free. A beneficiary only receives the account’s value at death, and growth after that point can become taxable. It’s a one-word difference on a form that changes the tax outcome. Ask specifically for successor holder status when you call.

Understanding the tax bill nobody expects

Canada doesn’t have an inheritance tax, and a lot of people stop their thinking right there. But when you die, the CRA treats your capital property as though you sold it the moment before death. That deemed disposition can trigger a real capital gains bill on your final tax return, and any RRSP or RRIF you hold gets taxed as income unless it rolls over to a spouse or a financially dependent child or grandchild.

The number that catches people off guard is how fast this adds up. A cottage bought decades ago for a fraction of its current value, an investment portfolio that’s grown for thirty years, a RRIF sitting at six figures: any of these can generate a tax bill in the tens of thousands on a single final return, due all at once rather than spread across years the way it would have been if you were still alive to manage the withdrawals.

This isn’t a step you complete in an afternoon the way the beneficiary review is. It’s a conversation you need to have, either with an accountant, tax specialist or with whoever helps you build your will, about what your estate will actually owe and where that money will come from. Budget an hour to sit down with your account statements and get a rough sense of your exposure. It won’t be exact, but it’ll be enough to know whether this needs real planning, like life insurance to cover the bill or a gradual RRIF drawdown strategy, or just a mental note.

Signing your powers of attorney

A will only takes effect after you’re gone. If you become incapacitated while you’re still alive, you need two separate documents: one giving someone authority over your property and finances, and one giving someone authority over your personal and medical care. Each takes about an hour to complete once you know who you’d name. The hesitation here is rarely logistical. Naming someone feels like admitting something could go wrong. It’s the opposite. It’s making sure the right person has authority to act, instead of leaving your family to apply to a court for guardianship while your bills sit unpaid and decisions about your care sit in limbo.

This is also one of the few steps that helps you while you’re still alive, not just after. A stroke, an accident, or a sudden illness can leave you unable to manage your own affairs at any age. Without these documents in place, your spouse can’t necessarily step in and pay your mortgage or talk to your doctors on your behalf, even if you’ve been married for decades.

If you want a structured way to work through your own thinking before any of this goes into a lawyer’s office or a form, Designed or Default™ walks you through the difference between planning intentionally and letting default rules decide for you. And if you’re ready to organize the decisions themselves, Estate Architect™ gives you a guided way to work through them before your appointment, so the time you spend with a professional is spent finalizing, not figuring out where to start.

Actually telling your family the plan

The last step isn’t a document at all. It’s making sure the people around you know where to find things. Tell your executor where your will is stored. Keep a list of your accounts, insurance policies, and digital assets somewhere your family can actually locate. This takes an hour or two, usually faster if you work from a checklist instead of starting from a blank page. You don’t need to share every dollar figure. You just need to make sure nobody is left guessing on the worst day of their lives.

None of these five steps require a free weekend or a complicated life event to get started. Most of them take less time than the thinking about them has already cost you.

Levi ended up starting with his will after all, on a Saturday morning he’d originally set aside for yard work. It took him most of the afternoon, not because it was hard, but because he kept stopping to think about the decisions before doing the drafting. By the time he closed his laptop, the yard work hadn’t happened, but the will had.

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Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.