Estate planning after 65: what changes

Most Canadians over 65 have a will. The senior estate-planning problem is different: the will is twenty years old, the powers of attorney do not exist, and the tax profile has completely changed since the documents were signed.

The stale-will audit

Pull out the will and check the names against reality. The executor — still alive, still capable, still nearby? (A sibling your age is now also in their seventies; consider a child or a trust company.) The beneficiaries — anyone died, divorced, become disabled (see below), or drifted away? The guardianship clauses for children who are now 45 can go; contingent gifts to grandchildren may need trust terms and ages. If the will predates 2012–2022 provincial reforms, the law around it changed too — the update triggers in full.

Incapacity documents stop being theoretical

Under 50, powers of attorney are car-accident insurance. Past 70, they are dementia planning, and the statistics are blunt: the likelihood that these documents get used now exceeds most other planning assumptions. If they do not exist, they are this month’s task — and they require capacity to sign, so the window closes exactly when the need arrives. Choose attorneys a generation down where possible, with the safeguards (joint attorneys or a monitor) that make elder financial abuse structurally harder.

The tax shape of 71+

At 71 the RRSP becomes a RRIF, and the estate-tax picture sharpens: the RRIF’s entire balance is income on the final return unless it rolls to a spouse. For widowed and single seniors — where no rollover waits — the planning question is whether to draw the RRIF down faster than the minimums, paying middle-bracket tax annually instead of top-bracket tax at death. That is arithmetic worth an accountant’s hour. Charitable intentions fit here too: gifts at death credit against up to 100% of final-return income.

Make it findable

The best-planned senior estate still fails if nobody can find anything. Consolidate scattered accounts, list what exists and where, and tell the executor where the original will lives. That inventory is what the estate record is for — and a read-only executor share means the person who will settle things has seen the map before they need it.