Episode 60 - How to Safeguard Your Disabled Loved Ones in Your Estate Plan with Hugh McLellan
Powered by RedCircle
Nicole Garton 00:00:02 Hello and welcome to your Estate Matters presented by Heritage Trust. Your Estate Matters is a podcast dedicated to everything estates, including building and preserving your legacy. If it's estate related, we'll be talking about it. We're having the conversations today that will help Canadians protect their families, their assets and their legacies tomorrow. Hello and welcome to your Estate Matters. I'm Nicole Garton. Today, we're talking about estate planning for disabled beneficiaries in British Columbia. Over 6 million Canadians aged 15 and older identifies having one or more disabilities. That is roughly 22% of the population, and as their population ages, that number is only going to grow. For parents and grandparents, there is nothing more important than knowing that a child or grandchild with a disability would be looked after when there are no longer here. But the planning is much more complex than most people expect, and the consequences of getting it wrong can be significant. I'm delighted to be joined today by someone who spent his entire career working at the intersection of estate planning, estate litigation and elder law.
Nicole Garton 00:01:15 Hugh McLellan is a partner at McLellan Herbert Locke in Vancouver. He is the founding vice chair and past chair of the Canadian Bar Association's National Elder Law Section, and the founding chair of the CBA's B.C. Elder Law subsection. He's a former chairman of the CBA Wills and Trusts subsection in Vancouver. He has served on multiple law reform committees dealing with adult guardianship and wills and estates. He's the co-editor of the Financial and Estate Planning for the Mature Client in British Columbia, published by LexisNexis and a contributor to the B.C. Representation Act, Adult Guardianship Act and related Statutes, published by Carswell and a member of the editorial board of the Estate Disputes in British Columbia. A Litigators guide established by Kelly. He's been recognized as best lawyer in Canada in wills and Estates, and in 2004, he received the CBA BC Community Service Award for his involvement with mental health and elder law issues. He continues to serve as a director of charitable organizations supporting challenge members in the community. So Hugh, thank you so much for being here. It's amazing to have you and to have a leader in this area, and we're really grateful for you spending the time with us.
Hugh McLellan 00:02:30 Oh you're welcome, Nicole, thank you for inviting me.
Nicole Garton 00:02:32 So you founded the elder law section at the Canadian Bar Association, both nationally and in BC. And you've been involved in elder law and reforming adult guardianship for decades. So tell me, what drew you to this work? What was your interest in it?
Hugh McLellan 00:02:50 Well, going way back when I was a child, we had a family friend who had a child that had a developmental disability. So I was exposed to that very early on. And then when I made my way through school and law school, I articled to a fellow by the name of Bruce McCall, who was the chair of the Community Living Society, and he invited me to be the parliamentarian at their annual general meeting. So that really gave me exposure to that whole community living movement, and that I eventually became a director. And in my practice, we started doing work for the public trustee at the time, now the public Guardian and trustee. And so that gave me further exposure to this whole area.
Hugh McLellan 00:03:39 And it was just an area of interest.
Nicole Garton 00:03:42 So you've been involved in community organizations supporting people with disabilities. Tell us about that and how that shaped your approach to helping clients and families?
Hugh McLellan 00:03:52 It's a factor in that. It gives you further exposure to see how families actually deal with the real world in if they have a child with a developmental disability, or perhaps a parent that's going through early stages of Alzheimer's, that sort of thing. So yeah, it's just it just adds to the experience.
Nicole Garton 00:04:16 But tell me about some of the organizations you've been involved with.
Hugh McLellan 00:04:19 Well, I was a chair of the Canadian Bar Association Wills and Trust section, and that eventually morphed into becoming involved with the Elder Law section of the Canadian Bar Association. There was a number of people from across the country that were interested in establishing this, and myself and another lawyer, Fiona Hunter, had just written a book on financial and estate planning for Mature Client in British Columbia. And so I got involved with that movement to try and create an elder law section of the Canadian Bar Association.
Hugh McLellan 00:04:58 So it took us some time, but we eventually got that established and then getting the National Elder Law section established. I then set up an Elder Law section of the Canadian Bar Association in BC. So there were those things. I was also involved with the Community Living Society, as I mentioned initially as a parliamentarian, and then became a director of that organization. And then after I served my time on that board, started the Joe Dickie Foundation, which is a foundation that tries to support people that have physical or mental challenges in our community that for the supply of things to improve the quality of their life. So it might be taking a trip or buying somebody a bicycle, but there's lots of Organizations that deal with children in those categories. So we focus on adults. Especially adults that have no other supports, no other families. So that's been something that I've been involved in since 2001.
Nicole Garton 00:06:03 So just to back up a bit. Our listeners might not know much about community living BC. Do you want to tell them about what it does?
Hugh McLellan 00:06:10 And okay, so the Community Living Society was the first organization that was focused on getting people out of institutions and living in the community.
Hugh McLellan 00:06:23 The Community Living BC is an umbrella organization now that covers all of these separate community living, society type organizations. And there's many of them throughout the province. So that umbrella organization is not what I was involved in. It was the pioneer or the first community living society that I was involved in.
Nicole Garton 00:06:47 So people may not know much about what it does today. So it has a huge role in housing and things like that. Do you want to tell our listeners what?
Hugh McLellan 00:06:57 Yeah, it's primarily focused on housing. In other words, getting people out of institutions, living in the community, in group home settings, or perhaps one on one settings, that sort of thing. And the government does support it to a large degree, but a lot of it is also done through private fundraising.
Nicole Garton 00:07:18 If someone's listening and they've got a family member or a close friend that has some sort of disability and is interested in what community living might provide, like do you have ideas on how they can find out more about it or access those services?
Hugh McLellan 00:07:34 Community Living British Columbia would be the umbrella organization, as I say, that probably would be contacted to find out who is providing those services in your particular geographic area.
Nicole Garton 00:07:46 Let's talk about elder law. Elder law in the US is a huge practice area in Canada. Like I did some elder law. I know you do an enormous amount, but it's not as developed or sort of as recognized an area. Why do you think that is? Why do you think there's a difference?
Hugh McLellan 00:08:05 Well, of course in the US they have a very different medical system. They have a lot of veterans who qualify for various things. And so the elder law organizations in the US have a lot more of those sorts of things they deal with than we have in Canada. But in Canada, I always think of wills and trust just being part of elder law rather than elder law being a subset of wills and trusts, which is perhaps the most common way people think about it. But really, it's the other way around. And so elder law in Canada deals with planning for the possibility of incapacity, but also other things. It's a more holistic approach. So we look at housing, we look at the medical issues that people can encounter and where their supports are and those sorts of things.
Nicole Garton 00:09:01 Let's talk about the people that we support. You know, often there's families and they count to us because they have a disabled child or grandchild or other beneficiary. You know, when they come to you to the meeting, tell me what they talk about and what their biggest concerns are.
Hugh McLellan 00:09:18 I would say the biggest concern is what is going to happen to my child when I pass away or I'm no longer able to do it. And that, frankly, motivates most people to start the planning process when they get to that stage.
Nicole Garton 00:09:35 And let's talk about that, because as lawyers, we often help them with documents and respective financial planning or documents that the disabled individual can do. But what about community supports like? Could you tell our listeners about things like plan and other resources that are available to families?
Hugh McLellan 00:09:59 Yes, there definitely are other resources. The Disability Alliance that plan, which is a plan, lifetime advocacy network. They are an excellent organization that helps people think about what happens when you're gone and you have left a child with a disability, an adult child.
Hugh McLellan 00:10:21 Now, what sort of network can be put in place to help carry on? What you as a parent have been trying to do? So those are very important.
Nicole Garton 00:10:32 And they're a made in BC organization. And they were the leaders in the DSP movement. Do you want to tell the listeners about that.
Hugh McLellan 00:10:41 The plan is a BC based organization, but the really national in scope. They've done so much for people that fit within this community. And the establishment of the registered disability savings program probably is the greatest thing that they've been able to do to help all Canadians that have disabilities.
Nicole Garton 00:11:04 Do you want to tell people what the DSP is and what it offers? Sure.
Hugh McLellan 00:11:08 So if someone qualifies to set up an DSP, then they can place funds into this. It's kind of like a registered retirement savings plan. But what it means is you can add money to it, and the government will provide a grant or a bond for a certain amount of money over time. So you can really build up the investment.
Hugh McLellan 00:11:35 There's a maximum of $200,000 that can be placed into an DSP and there are restrictions on taking money out. The whole idea is that you build up this pot and then at age 65, when you're going to lose your British Columbia disability benefits, then you've got this other registered disability benefit to help you with the money accrues without a tax on it. But the main thing is really to think of it as a retirement plan, rather than something that you're going to use during your lifetime. You can withdraw the money. You will probably have to pay back some of the bonds and grants if you if you do that within a certain number of years. But generally it's a really good thing. And unfortunately, it's not extremely well known. But it's getting there. There's a lot more education that's been coming out on DSPs and more and more people are learning about them. And definitely if you have if you qualify for it, it's really a no brainer to set one up.
Nicole Garton 00:12:44 And so to qualify for it, generally the individual has to have the disability tax credit.
Nicole Garton 00:12:51 Do you want to talk about that?
Hugh McLellan 00:12:52 Yeah. So in order to get the disability tax credit, which is a federal program, I guess you could call it under our income tax regime, a person has to have a long-standing disability of some sort, some impairment, and it has to be certified by a medical practitioner. And there's all sorts of issues about people that might have temporary impairments and things like that, which, you know, it really is going to depend on whether you get the support of the medical community. You also have to file a tax return. And a lot of people that would qualify for the disability tax credit don't file a tax return because they think they don't need to. But honestly, it makes sense to file the tax return and get this disability tax credit. It opens up the doors to a number of things.
Nicole Garton 00:13:44 Filing the tax return is important. And I noticed sometimes families that I talked to will say, you know, we're the cost of living is so high, we're really struggling to support our disabled person.
Nicole Garton 00:13:57 You know, money's so tight, but even small, even just opening the door up and even relatively small amounts entitles the individual to those government grants that they can be actually quite beneficial. So. And you can walk into bank branches and have one of the planners there help you to open it up. But even relatively modest deposits still can result in quite valuable benefits. Do you notice that people aren't necessarily aware of that?
Hugh McLellan 00:14:28 Or as I say, I think over time we've seen more education on it. And so more and more people are becoming aware of these benefits. Certainly, if I have clients that come to me. Years ago, when it first came out, hardly anybody knew anything about it. People that did know about it would go to their bank, and the banks didn't know anything about it. But over time, it's definitely improved a lot. And I would say more often than not, clients are now coming to me when I mention our DSPs. They say, oh yes, we've got one set up for our child.
Hugh McLellan 00:15:03 One of the biggest concerns about our DSPs is planning for who's going to take over after the person that set up the plan passes away. And so that's planning that ought to happen as well as part of this whole process.
Nicole Garton 00:15:18 So the individual that sets it up is the subscriber. And it's often the parent. And I see this a lot where trusts fall into our trust company for example for disabled individuals. There's an DSP out there. Mum or dad was a subscriber, but there's no backup subscriber. So that's something that I noticed as well. And then people often say, oh, can we put the DSP funds into the trust? Well you can't. You got to find a backup subscriber. If the disabled individual has enough capacity, they could potentially be the backup subscriber.
Hugh McLellan 00:15:56 That's and the other way that we sometimes can help in that area is if the disabled person does a section seven representation agreement because they don't need to have full legal capacity to make a section seven representation agreement, they then can appoint a representative who can then select the replacement person for the DSP.
Nicole Garton 00:16:19 So that's a great segue. So let's talk about planning for the disabled individual. So you know there's a huge continuum of disability. So, you know, some people are born with a disability. Other people acquire it through illness or injury. Some people have functional limitations about aging. So how does the nature of the disability affect the planning conversation, and how does that lead into that tool? You. You talked about the section seven representation agreement.
Hugh McLellan 00:16:50 The nature of the disability is important for the professionals to know while they're trying to craft a plan, because a young person that might have a developmental disability is not going to have the same plan as an elderly person that's suffering from Alzheimer's. You need to know that you need to know a lot about their family, what supports they have, what the financial circumstances are. Quite a bit of information that you'll need to craft an appropriate plan.
Nicole Garton 00:17:17 So let's talk about planning for those disabled individuals and talk about what the options are.
Hugh McLellan 00:17:24 Sure. Well one of the first questions is capacity.
Hugh McLellan 00:17:27 Does the person have capacity to do this sort of planning? Assuming that we can get over that hurdle and the person does have capacity, then if they want to say, set up a trust for themselves to maintain benefits that otherwise might be cut off, then we can proceed and do that sort of thing. If someone is looking at a situation where they're doing a will and they want to make sure that their disabled child is looked after. Again, we can craft a plan that will include a trust within a will, for example.
Nicole Garton 00:18:07 So but let's talk about the disabled person themselves and that idea of the section seven representation agreement. Maybe you can tell people what that is and what the other options are if they don't have enough capacity for that.
Hugh McLellan 00:18:22 Sure. Well, let me explain about representation agreements. First of all, I was quite involved in the law reform that resulted in representation agreements starting way back in the 1980s. Eventually, it came into law in the year 2000, but the original plan was to replace a power of attorney, which most people know is a document where you appoint someone to handle financial affairs and legal affairs with a representation agreement, so the representative would not only be able to handle financial and legal affairs, but also make health and personal care decisions if the donor of the instrument was later incapable.
Hugh McLellan 00:19:04 Now, eventually the government changed that. And you can have two types of representation agreements. Section seven is a basic one or a limited one, and the section nine is the more comprehensive one that would deal with all types of health care and personal care decision making. So you can't use a section nine representation agreement these days to handle finances. You need your enduring power of attorney for that, and you have to have full mental capacity in order to make a section nine representation agreement. But the community recognized and the government accepted that there are a lot of people that are not able to make a section nine agreement, but it's not appropriate that you go get a court order to have someone handle their affairs. So the Representation Agreement Act allows for the creation of a section seven representation agreement, which can be made by a person that does not have full legal capacity. Basically, they have to understand that they need help with decision making and that they trust the person who they're picking as a representative. There are some built in safeguards for monitors.
Hugh McLellan 00:20:22 and that sort of thing. But the section seven representation agreement not only would cover basic health and personal care decision making, but also routine financial affairs and legal affairs, with some exceptions. Basically, the act and the regulations set out what can and cannot be done by a section seven representation agreement. But it's a great tool for people to say that have some level of developmental disability, but understand that they still need help with making decisions or people that are in an early stages of Alzheimer's who unfortunately didn't do the planning that they ought to have done, created the enduring power of attorney, created the section nine representation agreement. They still could perhaps do a section seven representation agreement.
Nicole Garton 00:21:11 So that's helpful. Let's talk about what happens if the person doesn't meet the threshold of a section seven. What can a family do?
Hugh McLellan 00:21:20 Okay. There are people that just cannot meet that level. And it's not just a question of communication, because there's all sorts of ways a person can communicate that aren't the standard ways, but it's still acceptable.
Hugh McLellan 00:21:34 But there are people that will be so disabled that they're not able to even do a section seven representation agreement in order for someone to assist a person that is in that category, then we have a default system in our Patients Property Act. And so you would apply to court to get what's called a committee of a state to handle financial affairs, legal affairs, or comment and or committee, a person to handle personal and medical decision making. Now that process takes a number of months. It requires doctors to provide affidavits of incapacity. It requires an affidavit from the applicant, typically a family member setting out who the next of kin are and what the person's assets are. Those documents are filed with the court. Served on the person. Served on the public guardian and trustee who will provide comments. And often there are some restrictions on accessing things. And then the court will eventually make a declaration that the person is incapable and appoint the appropriate person to be the committee of the state and or person. That process will take months and it is a significant cost.
Hugh McLellan 00:22:49 Anytime you go to court. So doing this planning in advance will save a lot of money.
Nicole Garton 00:22:54 So let's pivot and talk about. Often, it's mom and dad. It might be grandparents or other family members. So they've got a beneficiary who has a disability. What is sort of best practice in terms of planning?
Hugh McLellan 00:23:12 Well, every person should have a will because everybody is going to die. It's amazing how many people don't do wills. How you craft the will when you have a person that's a beneficiary; that's under a disability will be slightly different. But the person doing the estate plan should also be doing an enduring power of attorney and a section nine representation agreement. So those would be the basics. Then you want to look at whether a trust is appropriate for the situation. That is a trust that's outside of the will. For example, there might be an insurance policy. You might want to set up a trust to cover the insurance proceeds, life insurance proceeds. Or perhaps you want to set up a trust for the disabled person with your disabled child, say, while you're still alive.
Hugh McLellan 00:24:06 Maybe some benefit in doing that.
Nicole Garton 00:24:08 Let's talk about the will. What's common in a will when one of the beneficiaries is disabled?
Hugh McLellan 00:24:13 In most cases, you're looking at setting up a trust for the disabled person and that trust. There's some technical requirements in order for this to work properly, in order to maintain the disabled persons other benefits that they're receiving outside of the deceased persons estate. So most people in British Columbia that have a disability that qualify for our British Columbia disability benefits program will lose those benefits if they receive an amount of money that puts them over the limit. So in British Columbia, to qualify for the disability benefits, you have to meet both an asset and an income test. And the asset test for an individual is $100,000. There are other exceptions to that. But if you are a parent and you left your child a quarter of your estate, and that is that quarter is worth $300,000. Well, that child is going to receive $300,000. They're going to be cut off their disability benefits. And so to avoid that, you want to make sure that child share is going to be held in a, in a trust that works.
Nicole Garton 00:25:30 And so it preserves their benefits. But it also allows a hopefully competent person to manage the funds for their benefit.
Hugh McLellan 00:25:41 Absolutely. Now some people have disabilities that aren't too severe such that they can manage their own trust. That may work depending on the amount involved, because British Columbia does have a limit of $200,000 for what they call a non-discretionary trust, where the person could be their own trustee, for example. Or there's certain specified payouts under that trust as it's set up. But if you're going to have a fully discretionary trust, if the amounts over $200,000, it has to be an independent trustee that's managing that. And that leads to a question of who's going to do that once the person has passed away. That's something that typically the parent would have been doing. But then that leads to the consideration of who the trustee ought to be.
Nicole Garton 00:26:33 So let's talk about that. How do families choose who should be the trustee of these funds? Because obviously it should be somebody who's, you know, organized and competent, but hopefully also someone that knows the individual and their needs.
Nicole Garton 00:26:49 And tell me about that decision tree and what the options are available.
Hugh McLellan 00:26:54 It's probably more important when we're setting up a trust for a disabled person that the trustee or one of the trustees, because you can have more than one trustee, is well aware of the person's situation. You can have multiple people. As I say, you can have individuals, you can have a trust company combination of individuals and a trust company. And really, it's going to depend on the amount involved. Whether the person chosen as a trustee is able and comfortable in handling that money and dealing with the trust properly. So these are all things that need to be explored before the actual choice of the trustee is made.
Nicole Garton 00:27:39 So we talked about the different options for parents and also the individual. And given that you've been such a leader in this area, you know, in 2014, we really cleaned up and modernized a state law in British Columbia. We came up with the Wills, Estates and Succession Act that sort of consolidated eight different pieces of legislation.
Nicole Garton 00:28:04 But the adult guardianship legislation is still what some people might say is archaic. It's the Patients Property Act. What are your thoughts about that? Is it due for modernization? What do you think the future is and how we can better serve families?
Hugh McLellan 00:28:20 The law reform that started in the 1980s worked well through the 1990s and eventually resulted in the passing of the Adult Guardianship Act and proclamation in 2000, contained a section that replaced the Patient's Property Act. The old Archaic Patients Property Act that dealt with the court appointed committees. The government didn't proclaim that section into force. So we're still left with this very old legislation. I mean, this this legislation basically goes back to the Lunacy Act and 1920s, roughly. It's a very paternalistic approach to assisting people with disabilities. Other provinces have moved towards reforming the law in that area and improving it. British Columbia still has a way to go now. They have definitely improved some areas. One of the areas they have improved on is the statutory committee, Schip, where the public guardian and trustee would automatically come into play.
Hugh McLellan 00:29:30 Now they've improved that a lot with various requirements of examinations and notifying people and that sort of thing. But the basic court process is still the same. You're either fully capable or fully incapable. Well, the reality is that it's a continuum of how capable you are. And somewhere along the line, you get over the point where you now need someone to make decisions for you. But in British Columbia, you’re going to if you if you hit that for one thing, you are going to lose all of your rights to make any decisions with respect to either financial or personal health care decision making. So at some point, I can see that there will be more crafted plans and orders that will result in a specific plan for a person dealing with a level of incapacity that that person has. But we're not there yet.
Nicole Garton 00:30:35 So let's go back to that updated statutory provision. Very few people in the public really are aware of it. Do you want to talk about what happens in that process exactly?
Hugh McLellan 00:30:47 Sure. So typically it arises where there's some problem and the person may be being taken advantage of.
Hugh McLellan 00:30:56 It may be that they're neglecting themselves. And that comes to light typically through one of the health care systems, but it might be a bank that that reports it. The individual will be examined by a doctor and determined to be incapable of managing their affairs. And so there is a process that a certificate of incapability is issued for that person. And the result of that automatically appoints the public guardian and trustee to manage that person's financial and legal affairs. And so the public guardian and trustee, once they're appointed, if it hasn't already been done, they'll be examining the situation to determine, hey, is there a family member out there that could take this on? And then they're happy to pass on that to the family member. That family member, of course, would have to apply to get the court order, but at least it's being done by a family member now. But sometimes it's the family member that's abusing this person. And so this gives the public guard interesting opportunity to assist this person and try and rectify whatever the problem is.
Hugh McLellan 00:32:16 It is not well known, and it's somewhat controversial these days, but I still think it has a good place in our community because there are people that you need to have help right away, and this is the best way to do it.
Nicole Garton 00:32:33 So how does that interface with people who might be held under the Mental Health Act?
Hugh McLellan 00:32:40 Different system. So the Mental Health Act would apply. If a person is either a danger to themselves or a danger to others, there will be apprehended. They'll be taken to a facility and can be given treatment. The result of that also is that the public guardian and trustee will manage that person's affairs. But typically the Mental Health Act is a relatively temporary apprehension, and there are ways to, have that reviewed and that sort of thing. But it can also lead to further involvement of the health and public guardian and trustee.
Nicole Garton 00:33:19 And you go in front of a panel on regular intervals to have it either renewed or not renewed.
Hugh McLellan 00:33:26 Isn't that right? Yeah. If you're into that system, then there are reviews that are required at certain periods of time, and it can be extended for certain periods of time as well.
Hugh McLellan 00:33:38 But a lot of times people will come out of it and then they're suddenly getting support now, or they might not have been getting it before. Or perhaps, family members will become involved and you get a committee ship or something like that.
Nicole Garton 00:33:55 So I think what we see as practitioners on the ground is often people haven't done the proactive planning that you talked about. You know, the families in crisis and this system is complicated and somewhat opaque. And then, you know, the Patients Property Act is older legislation. If you were appointed the attorney general one day and you were allowed to change this, what would you what would you do? How would you improve the guardianship system?
Hugh McLellan 00:34:29 Well, I think the, the, the first thing is to make it more individualized for people. We have a very broad, one size fits all system, which has been around for a long time, but it's not the best. And certainly going to a more individualized system would be a huge improvement for our has.
Nicole Garton 00:34:49 Capacity is nuanced and it's dynamic. Yes. And the other thing is, you know, the graying of the population and that there's going to be the stats are a huge percentage of our population is going to have some sort of dementia diagnosis. I think if you live long enough, the statistics are a certain percentage of people will have this and we don't see them in terms of our legislation and in terms of our resources to be ready as a society for that. What are your thoughts?
Hugh McLellan 00:35:19 Yeah, resources is a big issue. I mean, the Public Guardian and Trustee does a great job. They do the best they can with the resources they're given. But honestly, there's a lot more that could be done if there were more resources available. So it's a question of, you know, what priorities does the government have? And we see an aging population, perhaps more resources could be put into educating the aging population about planning in advance. That might not be too bad of a of a use of resources.
Nicole Garton 00:35:54 Let's talk about that. So you're a leader in this field. You've been working for decades. What do you want your legacy to be when from all these years of hard work and leadership and helping families?
Hugh McLellan 00:36:06 Yeah. Well, honestly, I, I'm most proud of the changes that were made in our adult guardianship laws. So the creation of the representation agreements, the modernization of other guardianship aspects. I'm very happy to see that. And, and, and British Columbia was a leader in dealing with representation agreements across the country. So they're not called representation agreements in other places. A lot of times they're called powers of attorney for person or things like that. But medical proxies, you might have heard that term. So I'm very pleased that that we've gone that route and I've been able to help a lot more people.
Nicole Garton 00:36:51 Great. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
Hugh McLellan 00:36:54 Probably the most important thing is don't worry. Plan. there are people out there that don't know where to start.
Hugh McLellan 00:37:02 They have this issue. They know it's going to be an issue and they're worried about it. But start the planning. Talk to the professionals and involve trust companies. There's lots of assistance you can get from various institutions as well. of course, with the internet, everybody can Google and get information that way. So there's a lot of information out there to get your mind thinking about it. And then when it comes time to do the planning, make sure you, you pick somebody that knows what they're doing. If you've got a person with a disability. There are certain technical requirements that have to be met. And not everybody, not every accountant or lawyer is necessarily familiar with those.
Nicole Garton 00:37:45 So speaking of that, how can people find you?
Hugh McLellan 00:37:48 We're on the internet. It's McLellan Herbert Locke LLP, and it's, www.McLellanHerbertLocke.com.
Nicole Garton 00:37:57 Thank you so much, Hugh.
Hugh McLellan 00:37:58 Thank you. Nicole.
Nicole Garton 00:37:59 This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual, legal, financial, or tax advice.
Nicole Garton 00:38:06 Make sure to consult the advisor of your choice to advise you on your own circumstances.
Nicole Garton 00:38:14 Thank you for joining us for this episode of Your Estate Matters. If you like this podcast, make sure to follow it on your podcast platform of choice. Whether you're planning your own estate or you're acting as executor for somebody else's heritage, trust can help partner with Heritage Trust to protect your family, your assets, and your legacy. If you'd like more information about Heritage Trust, please visit our website at Heritage Trust. This podcast is produced by Podfather Creative.
Follow Heritage Trust
Get the Essential Estate Planning Checklist for Canadians
Follow Hugh McLellan:
Financial and Legal Tools/Programs
Community Living British Columbia
PLAN (Lifetime Advocacy Network)
Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP)
Section 7 Representation Agreement
British Columbia Disability Benefits Program
Books
Financial and Estate Planning for the Mature Client in British Columbia