The Peace of Mind Estate Planning System™
A five-stage method for Canadians who want a plan their family can actually find, understand, and use.
Built by Nicole Garton, TEP, an estate lawyer with 25 years of experience and President of Heritage Trust Company Inc.
Who this is for
You don't need a big estate. You don't need to know any of the vocabulary.
This is for you if:
You've been meaning to sort this out for a while and don't know where to start
You have a will, and it's old, or you're not sure what else goes with it
You want your family to know where things are and what you wanted
You'd rather follow a method than read another twelve articles
The five stages
Five stages, followed in order. Each one gets you ready for the next.
Stage 1: Understand
You learn what estate planning actually is, what it isn't, which documents matter, and what each one does. You also learn when your situation might need specialist advice.
Where it leaves you: you understand the landscape. You know what you're looking at and where the risks are.
Stage 2: Organize
You gather what your family, executor and advisors will one day need. Assets, debts, accounts, insurance, identification, legal documents, digital accounts, passwords. The small things that are easy to miss and hard for anyone else to find.
Where it leaves you: your situation is visible. What was scattered is in one place.
Stage 3: Reflect
You decide what you want your plan to do. Who should be in charge. Who receives what. What values should guide the decisions. Where there might be tension between people.
Where it leaves you: you have direction. You're working from decisions instead of options.
Stage 4: Act
You turn all of it into signed documents. You work with the right professionals, finalize what you need, line up your beneficiary designations with your wishes, and tell the right people where everything lives.
Where it leaves you: your plan exists in the form it needs to take.
Stage 5: Protect
You build the habits that keep it accurate. A review schedule, an updated inventory, a watch for life changes, and a decision about who gets told when something changes.
Where it leaves you: your plan stays current instead of going stale in a drawer.
Why the order matters
The stages aren't separate modules you pick from. Each one depends on the one before it. You can't organize what you don't understand, and you can't act on decisions you haven't made yet.
The order is the value. It's what makes this a System instead of a pile of information.
Video lessons for each stage, plus the worksheets, templates and checklists that go with them. It's self-paced, so you move at your own speed and come back whenever you need to.
There are also sections for situations that need extra care. Blended families. Beneficiaries with disabilities or vulnerabilities. First Nations and Indian Act considerations. Business ownership. Cross-border assets. Digital accounts.
What you work with
Who built it
Nicole Garton has been a lawyer since 2001 and has spent 25 years in estates, trusts and family disputes. In 2018 she co-founded Heritage Trust Company Inc., a trust company regulated by the BC Financial Services Authority, where she is President and General Counsel.
The System comes out of that work. It's what she wished every family had done before she met them.
Everything here is education. It gets you clear and organized so your time with a lawyer is focused and useful. It isn't legal, tax or financial advice, and it doesn't replace your own professionals.
See the System in full
The masterclass walks you through the five biggest mistakes Canadians make, and how the five stages help you avoid them.
Under an hour. $19.97.