An Ontario court has ruled that the investment accounts of a man who died without a will should go directly to his common-law spouse, rather than into his estate, as argued by his estranged daughter.
According to a decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, when Giuseppe Lagana died in January 2021 without a will, he had about $200,000 in a pair of investment accounts — a mutual fund account and a GIC — which held the proceeds from the sale of his home in British Columbia. A dispute arose over whether the accounts belonged to his estate, as his estranged daughter argued, or should go to his common-law spouse, who was listed as a joint owner on the accounts.
The court noted that, in the absence of a will, there’s a presumption that the accounts are subject to a resulting trust in favour of the estate. However, Lagana’s common-law spouse, Ingrid Niwranski, argued that he intended for the accounts to go to her.
The court said the two sides agreed that “the doctrine of resulting trust applies in this case,” and that Niwranski “must rebut that presumption” to successfully argue that the accounts should go to her rather than into his estate.
Ultimately, the court sided with Niwranski, ruling that the evidence “has rebutted the presumption of resulting trust.”
In reaching that conclusion, the court accepted the evidence that they lived as spouses, that Lagana intended the accounts to pass to Niwranski, and that he didn’t have a relationship with his daughter.
Among other things, the decision noted that Niwranski was designated as the beneficiary of Lagana’s RRSP and TFSA. She testified that they met with a financial planner at a Royal Bank branch about investing the proceeds from the sale of his house, and that the planner told them to hold those assets in a joint account with a right of survivorship, so they would automatically pass to the surviving spouse.
She also told the court that Lagana did not want to spend the money to make a will, and that “she understood him to say that he could make an estate plan without a will by aligning his beneficiaries at the bank,” the court noted.
“According to the respondent, she asked Giuseppe Lagana, in the presence of [the planner], if he wanted to leave anything to members of his family and he responded, ‘F–k ’em. It all goes to Ingrid,’” the court said.
In finding that the evidence “rebutted the presumption of resulting trust,” the court also noted that Lagana didn’t have a relationship with his daughter in the final years of his life, and that they had no direct communication since 2018.
“It seems unlikely that Giuseppe Lagana made a decision to not make a will knowing that the result would be a gift by way of intestate succession to [his daughter],” the court noted, adding that “… it was more likely that Giuseppe Lagana intended to gift the investment accounts to [Niwranski],” it said.
As a result, the court issued an order declaring Niwranski to be the sole owner of the investment accounts.