Tag: travel

Executor Timeline: Milestones of Estate Settlement

RobHLeave a comment

I served as the executor of my late mother’s estate who was predeceased by my father. They were DIY investors, with the Y being “me” having had Power of Attorney for their retirement investments. Both of my parents were of sound mind; they asked me to take over their finances because my father correctly surmised that he was paying a lot of money for little benefit to his wealth advisor at BMO.

I’m in the last days of settling the estate; most of the funds have been disbursed but I’m holding a small amount to deal with unanticipated expenses as I close out the final account.

I figured it might be useful to executors (or executors-to-be) what the various estate milestones were so you can set expectations with beneficiaries. Of course every estate is different, but some of the milestones I passed will potentially be useful nonetheless.

The Starting Line

  • My mother’s will was prepared in the province of Ontario, and that’s where she lived
  • She collected OAS, but not CPP. Since she lived in Quebec for her working life, she contributed to the QPP, a different animal altogether.
  • She had no real estate or large valuable things to sell. She lived in a one-bedroom retirement home with very limited space. Things like properties or vehicles and collectables add a whole other realm of complexity that I didn’t have to deal with.
  • Her primary savings were at BMO Investorline in the form of a RRIF, a TFSA and a non-registered account. These accounts held mostly ETFs, and some individual stocks. I had full control over these accounts while my mother was alive, so I knew exactly what was in them. (And any ACBs for things held in non-registered accounts; brokers are notoriously bad at tracking this sort of thing accurately).
  • Her day to day banking was at CIBC, and I was a joint account holder. Being a joint account holder means I had full control of the funds therein both before and after her death.
  • Her will named me as the sole executor and me and my siblings were the beneficiaries. Having a single executor is so much easier since there’s no coordination needed with anyone else. Some people may think having co-executors is a good idea, but I for one am grateful I didn’t have to try to coordinate the numerous in-person meetings I had to take with somebody else’s schedule.

Milestone 1: Reporting Phase Complete

When somebody dies, you have to tell institutions about it. The funeral home (if you use one, we did) did some of this on our behalf — notably the credit bureaus.

The rest, you have to take care of. A death certificate is almost always required as part of this, and here again the funeral home was helpful. A non exhaustive list of people I had to inform included:

  • Her retirement home (who refunded the rest of month rent once we cleared out)
  • Canada Post (to redirect any mail)
  • Quebec Pension Plan (online)
  • Her insurance provider (for contents insurance)
  • My father’s employer (because she was receiving a small survivor’s pension)
  • Her bank (CIBC)
  • Her broker (BMO Investorline)
  • CRA (to stop benefit payments — GST and Carbon Tax rebates1)2

Reporting a death is not too difficult, but as you can see, even for a simple estate, there are a lot of balls in the air immediately. New email addresses to deal with, forms to fill out, meetings to set up, phone calls to make.

The bulk of this was done in week one.

Milestone 2: Dealing with and distributing funds for named TFSA/RRIF Beneficiaries

With the reporting phase done, the bulk of efforts turned to dealing with BMO Investorline to get access to funds in my mother’s RRIF and TFSA; she had wisely (on the advice of a child of hers) designated beneficiaires for these accounts and hence these funds bypass the entire probate process. It’s something I’ve written about previously.

BMO Investorline punts estates to a dedicated estate department, and this process means you get a dedicated personal case manager3. On paper, this sounds wonderful — an actual person with an actual name and number you can contact! — but in practice it is not a good choice. These individuals seem to handle dozens (hundreds?) of cases simultaneously and getting a hold of one requires setting fixed meetings. I’d prefer to deal with an impersonal, specialized help desk. It would be faster.

There were new forms to fill out indicating the beneficiaries, letters of direction to write to get things moving, signatures of beneficiaries to collect (in ink, no digital signatures4 accepted) — if there are out-of-towners here this can take days/weeks alone.

In my case, 6 weeks after I started working with BMOI, I received a cheque for the amount owed to me as a beneficiary of the RRIF/TFSA. So not lightning fast, but it got done.

Milestone 3: Filing Probate

I decided to DIY this step. I know it’s not the usual (or even recommended5) method, but I really couldn’t stomach the fees being charged for what appeared to be a series of form-filling exercises6. A probated will was needed to access (and trade) funds in the non-registered account which continued to fluctuate in price, pay dividends, and generally putter along without any involvement (or any visibility) on my part.

There’s a few steps that need doing before you can file the paperwork

  • You need to know the exact size of the estate, which in our case meant
    • selling some jewellery, coins and whatnot
    • requesting a statement from BMO Investorline for asset value on date of death
  • Once you know the size of the estate, calculating the probate taxes7 is straightforward using their handy-dandy calculator
  • Figuring out how to pay those probate taxes is another step. In my case, a letter of direction asking for a partial liquidation of non-registered funds8 and waiting a few weeks was enough for BMO Investorline to send me a cheque made out to the Minister of Finance9
  • Then there is the form filling. The information requested isn’t difficult, but understanding what forms are required probably took several hours of reading to make sure I had it right10.
  • The logistics of notarizing and serving the required forms was an interesting challenge, but a roving notary11 who made house calls made things much easier. Recommended!
  • After serving the required form to the beneficiaries, you are obligated to wait 30 days in case there are any legal challenges.

Getting all the way to the point where I was ready to make the trip downtown to the courthouse took about 2 months after the funeral. I was still working full time at this point, so I’m sure it could’ve been done faster.

Milestone 4: Opening Estate Accounts

Estate accounts are required in order for you to deposit any cheques made out to the deceased or the Estate of the Deceased. But oh boy, was this a total PITA.

I started the process with CIBC about 2 weeks after the funeral, at the same meeting where I canceled my mother’s credit card. As mentioned previously, at CIBC, branch employees seem to have very limited familiarity with how estate accounts work and rely on a for-employees-only call centre for help. I would from time to time get weird (and to me, unrelated) questions from the branch about how much money might end up in the account (no idea), when probate would be achieved (again, no idea) and so on. It was an altogether infuriating experience. In the end, when the account was opened (and I can’t make this stuff up), I was handed a Post-It note with the account number scrawled on it. That was it.

This process took 6 weeks from the funeral, which to me is unbelievable. I had expected this to be done during the initial meeting I had with the branch. Perhaps I just got unlucky, no idea. But this was easily among the more painful things I had to endure.

I also did the same with BMO Investorline without really being sure I needed to (in the end, I did). The BMO Investorline process was by comparison reasonably easy, except I had to fill in a bunch of forms as though I was a brand new client which felt rather repetitive. And they were generic forms, so they asked inappropriate-for-an-estate kinds of information, like net worth, annual income, etc etc.

Milestone 5: Regular tax return

My mother died in the first quarter of 2024, which meant her 2023 taxes still needed to be prepared and submitted at the usual deadlines. I’ve been preparing my parents’ taxes for many years at this point, so it wasn’t a big deal, but the additional work came at a not-ideal time. The tax return was filed prior to the April deadline, about a month after the funeral.

Milestone 6: Probate Granted

Once the probate papers are filed at the courthouse, it’s a waiting game with no transparency whatsoever. The clerk at the courthouse estimated it would take six weeks. It actually took five!

Given all the work required to file probate, the actual granting of it is underwhelming. A regular mail containing my mother’s will and form 74C, now embossed with the seal of something or other. No cover letter, nothing else. No Post-It notes, though.

Milestone 7: Filing the Estate Information Return

This is basically a document that lists all the assets that went into the calculation of the probate taxes. And the estate trustee (the person to whom probate is granted) must file this within 180 days after being declared the trustee. In theory, this document could show that you still owe additional taxes, but I was careful during the filing of Probate that all the estate value was accounted for.

This took a few hours online using the Province’s website.

Milestone 8: Reestablishing access to the non-registered funds

All this time, I had no access and no visibility as to what was going on in the non-registered account. After providing proof of probate to BMO Investorline, things moved reasonably quickly and I regained online access to the account. Actually, strictly speaking, I gained online access to the newly created Estate account (new account number, and named The Estate of) , and the first transactions I saw were transfers from the account owned by my mother.

This milestone was achieved about four months after the funeral, or about 2 weeks after being granted probate.

Milestone 9: Preserving the value of the non-registered funds

Up until now, the non-registered account was invested in equities, bonds, some in HISA — not an appropriate level of risk for an account that would be liquidated in the coming months. In the end, this account ended up generating income, but given the level of equities in it, it could have just as easily gone south in the time that had elapsed between the funeral and me regaining access.

And so I immediately sold off all assets and plopped them into USD and CAD HISAs, not cash; no need to let the money sit idle at this point.

That took about 90 seconds 🙂

Milestone 10: First distribution of some non-registered funds

I had a pretty good idea of how much tax would be owing on the final return/estate return, and I could see that the non-registered account had more than enough funds to cover those taxes. And so, I initiated a preliminary distribution of some of the non-registered funds to the beneficiaries.

To do this, I had to convince BMO Investorline to send me cheques, which they eventually did. This meant I could write cheques against cash in the non-registered estate account.

This happened about 5 months after the funeral.

Milestone 11: Conversion to all-cash

My mother died in the first quarter of 2024. Her final return and estate return would therefore be due in 2025. I wanted the estate to be done with generating income in 2024; otherwise, I would have had to file ANOTHER estate return for FY25. And so, in late November, I sold all of the HISAs and left cash in the non-registered account, a situation that pained me greatly.

This took place about 8 months after the funeral, and so I earned HISA interest on the holdings for 4 months to the benefit of all the beneficiaries.

Milestone 12: Filing final return, estate return

I ended up hiring an accountant to do this last bit of paperwork. After reviewing what they did, I realized in hindsight that this was a task well within my capabilities, but the CRA website made it seem way more complicated than it actually was.

In any case, there were two wrinkles involved in preparing the returns, both involving BMO/BMOI. In one case, their HISA unit clearly didn’t talk to their Investorline unit, and they sent T slips to my mother’s former address. I filed a formal complaint about that.

The second issue involved a missing RC249 form which captures the decline in value of a RRIF between day of death and day of liquidation. After some back and forth, BMOI came up with the goods.

At this point, I wrote cheques out to the CRA for the final and estate returns. I was happy that I estimated these pretty precisely.

The final and estate returns were filed in April 202512, about 13 months after the funeral.

Milestone 13: Notice of Assessment for final return

This was received in May 2025, so reasonably quickly after filing it. We’re now at 14 months after the funeral.

Milestone 14: Notice of Assessment for estate return

The CRA really is a dysfunctional organization. Their SLA for processing the estate return is 17 weeks per their website. And that clock doesn’t start until the Final Return Notice of Assessment is complete. I finally got this (and even here, they managed to lose at least one notification letter) in late December 2025. This puts us at 21 months after the funeral.

Milestone 15: Clearance Certificate

The Clearance Certificate (TX19) has an SLA of 120 calendar days. And you should not start this process until the Estate Return has been processed. Everything involving CRA is a serial process, there’s no shortcuts.

Anyway, this is something the accountant did as part of their service. I actually got them to file it before I had hands on the paper copy of the Estate Return Notice of Assessment because I knew that the Estate Return was complete (they mailed the estate a cheque).

CRA, predictably, did not exceed expectations. 120 days after they received the Clearance Certificate application, I got confirmation in the mail. This put us in February 2026, 23 months after the funeral.

Milestone 16: Final distribution and closure of estate accounts

This took a day — checking my math, writing and mailing cheques, sending eTransfers. I had to wait a week for an appointment to close the CIBC estate account (and since no online access, I didn’t really know what the value of it was). I haven’t yet closed the BMO Investorline account because I want to wait until the final final statement is available (I was told by their agents that I would not be able to get access to account statements if I closed the account immediately). But that will be one phone call in mid-March.

Final Thoughts

The process is lengthy but most of the delays are CRA-related. CRA easily added a year to the overall process due to their glacial processing. I’m really not sure I could have come to the finish line much faster.

So executors, a great deal of patience and a superhuman ability to remain on hold without losing your mind is required.

And for beneficiaries, don’t expect payouts very quickly!

I’ll share some specific suggestions on how to set up your estate in order to be kind to your executor in a future post.

  1. Remember those? ↩︎
  2. And to change the address of correspondence to mine. That was probably the hardest thing. I’m not really sure where I went wrong with that. ↩︎
  3. There’s no explicit charge for this at BMO Investorline. I’ve seen some brokers have charges for “estate management” and I can see why. ↩︎
  4. Estate workflows are, for the most part, very analog, even for an online broker like BMO Investorline. Lots of scan and email. Even a fax or two. ↩︎
  5. Especially by lawyers ↩︎
  6. I’m sure there are many horror stories about estates gone to litigation, but I really couldn’t imagine that happening in my case ↩︎
  7. Sorry, “Estate Administration Tax” per the province ↩︎
  8. Knowing what was in the accounts helped somewhat ↩︎
  9. per https://www.ontario.ca/page/estate-administration-tax#section-4 ↩︎
  10. In the end, I needed 74A, 74B, 74C and 74D. ↩︎
  11. In Ottawa, notaryonwheels.ca is an excellent service ↩︎
  12. The due date depends on date of death. ↩︎

News: Wealthsimple Norbert’s Gambit in Beta

RobHLeave a comment

Norbert’s Gambit is a way to save money on USD/CAD conversions. (Want to learn more? I’ve written about it here). Most brokers take extra margin points on these conversions, hidden in the relatively crappy exchange rate you actually get. Since a lot of my retirement holdings are in USD, and since I am a cheapskate, I’ve used Norbert’s Gambit at three different brokerages (BMO Investorline, QTrade and Questrade1) over the years.

And now, Wealthsimple has joined the fray. It’s not open to the general public quite yet, but I did get a notification that I can now perform the Gambit on this platform. This brings Wealthsimple agonizingly close to being a contender for my retirement savings business. They only lack (puzzlingly) USD support in RRIF accounts. Otherwise, they check the other boxes in my “need to have” list for any broker:

  • $0 trading commissions
  • Support for USD accounts in non-registered, RRIF, and spousal RRIF2
  • Norbert’s Gambit3

Wealthsimple’s implementation of the Gambit seems to mirror that of Questrade insofar as they charge a $9.95 plus tax fee for journaling shares, a necessary step of performing the Gambit. There are a few oddball wrinkles documented on their website, none of them show-stoppers in my view:

  • Not available on the Wealthsimple app
  • You can only journal DLR/DLR.U. Other cross-listed shares aren’t supported4.
  • The journaling fee is always charged in Canadian dollars, and by the language used on the website, it sounds like you are blocked from doing the journaling unless you have the cash in your account at the time of the request5

Normally I’d give the feature a whirl to see if it’s comparable to the Questrade/QTrade experience, but I only hold CAD assets at Wealthsimple at the moment. It’s not really a complicated thing to do, the only way Wealthsimple could make the experience better is to do the journaling faster. I’ve documented the timelines involved with doing the Gambit at Questrade here.

  1. Other brokers also support it, but I just have no personal experience with it. ↩︎
  2. Wealthsimple doesn’t support this per their website ↩︎
  3. People (especially on Reddit) frequently cite Interactive Brokers as the best game in town to do currency conversions. I did at one time have an IB account, and I can confirm that their currency conversion rates across the board are a pittance, and in most cases will be cheaper (and faster) than even Norbert’s Gambit. HOWEVER, if you want to actually get hold of the cash you’re converting, then you can expect VERY long delays before you are allowed to withdraw the funds. ↩︎
  4. Most people use DLR/DLR.U to do the Gambit but it isn’t obligatory. At BMO Investorline, if you didn’t want to place a phone call, you had to use some other share combination (I usually chose a Canadian bank stock like RY). Not sure this is still true. ↩︎
  5. Questrade lets you carry a negative balance, but of course they will charge interest on that. ↩︎

Roaming: Is your provider ripping you off?

RobH1 Comment

I’ve been using cell phones1 since their early days2, and the one thing I hate more than bank fees is carrier fees. In bygone days, every US vacation we took involved a trip to the ATT or T-Mobile shop for a cheap travel SIM. All this to say it’s been ingrained in me to make unusual communications preparations in advance of travel.

Back in my working days3 I had a company-reimbursed cell phone plan4 with Rogers. My job involved travel now and again, usually to the USA. And I usually made use of Rogers’ “Roam Like Home” feature. When this feature was first introduced, it was pretty innovative; before it existed, you normally had to contact the carrier to temporarily add roaming to your plan, which was a hassle. The idea behind Roam Like Home was attractive. It was automatic, it allowed you to use your phone in exactly the same way (no need to keep track of your “roaming minutes” or “roaming data usage”)5. And, at launch, it was a reasonably priced, at $5/day for US roaming. As most of my travel was of the day or two variety, this seemed like a perfect fit for the business traveler.

But surprise, surprise, Rogers got greedy. As a shareholder6, I approve, but as a user, their now $12/day charge is nothing short of robbery.

And that’s when I discovered the world of travel eSIMs. An eSIM allows you to install a 2nd, virtual SIM card in your phone so you can benefit from MUCH cheaper roaming rates. I’ve been a long time user of Airalo for my travel eSIMs. And a quick look at the prices will show you why. The $12 Rogers charges me daily would pay for two weeks of typical US travel using Airalo.

Like all things, there’s no free lunch here. A few warnings that may make eSIMs not for you:

  • Your phone has to support eSIM technology. Most phones purchased in the last 5 years do. But do check.
  • The very cheapest eSIMs don’t support voice calling or SMS. Just data7. So if talking on your phone is important, then make sure your eSIM supports voice8. With the plethora of apps that allow texting and voice (WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Facetime) and the prevalence of free apps like TextNow, my world hardly ever needs voice or SMS, at least not with friend groups. YMMV.
  • Setting up an eSIM can be a little intimidating the first time; the instructions are clear enough, but you do have to mess around a bit in settings menus you may not be very familiar with

I’ve used Airalo successfully on multiple US trips, in Europe (Germany, Switzerland), and in Asia (Hong Kong, Thailand). Never had a problem.

Airalo isn’t the only one out there, it’s just the only one I’ve personally used. Their focus is more on short-term travel needs with plans as short as 7 days. An alternative provider my trusted neighbour Steven swears by is eskimo. Their focus is on bulk, so if you frequently travel to the same place, it may be a better choice for you.

If you want to give Airalo a spin, mentioning my referral code will get you $4.50: ROB1033.

  1. AKA mobile phone, smart phone, handy ↩︎
  2. And in my very first use of same, the first words I uttered, with no small amount of delight, from a bag phone (remember those?) were “Guess where I’m calling from?” ↩︎
  3. Which ended last month, just to be clear. ↩︎
  4. My current provider now that I’m paying the bills is Fizz, Videotron’s low-cost carrier. So far, so good. My referrer code on Fizz is INSWI, in case you want to get some free cash 🙂 ↩︎
  5. It was not uncommon in those days to hear a tale of woe involving a roaming charge of several hundred dollars charged to a less-attentive traveler. ↩︎
  6. I own Rogers via XGRO since it’s part of the S&P/TSX 60 ↩︎
  7. Be very careful, Apple iOS users. The Messages app is either SMS or a data service, depending on the colour of your bubbles. Blue bubbles — it’s a data service, green bubbles means it’s an SMS. ↩︎
  8. But again, careful. An eSIM with voice comes with its own phone number. That’s fine if you’re the one making calls, but not if you’re the one expecting to be reachable on your usual phone number. An answered inbound call is roaming, I’m afraid. ↩︎

Reduce Travel Costs by Paying Attention to Foreign Exchange

RobH3 Comments

Travel is something I like doing. Spending money on seeing new places, trying new things, all good from my perspective. But spending unnecessary money to line the pockets of a bank? I’m not so good with that.

For many years, I’ve used my credit card everywhere, in every country. Very convenient. I recall my first big trip abroad (circa 1992) where my main source of money was Travelers Cheques, if you can believe it. (Looks like they aren’t even available in Canada anymore).

But I never realized how much this habit was costing me. From https://www.cibc.com/en/personal-banking/credit-cards/articles/foreign-currency-credit-card.html:

It’s common for a credit card company to charge a foreign currency conversion fee between 1% and 3% of the transaction amount.

What’s especially sneaky, and the reason I never gave it much thought, is that the fee is buried in the exchange rate that is posted as part of the transaction. As a result, it’s easy to miss how much you’re giving to the bank.

Now, 1% to 3% extra for a cup of coffee or a taxi ride isn’t going to break the bank, but for a multi-night stay in a hotel? Show tickets? Car rentals? It can start to add up.

Here are two products that I use to help get rid of those fees. There are others out there, but these I have used myself and can recommend them.

Wealthsimple’s Cash Card

I’ve been rather curious about Wealthsimple for a while now. I started with using their “pay what you want” tax service and saw it got a mention from the Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick (an excellent resource, by the way) which led me to investigate further. This is NOT their “beta” Wealthsimple Infinite Visa credit card that is coming out in 2025.

From https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/spend:

Now you can feel like a local while shopping abroad. With no additional foreign transaction or ATM fees from Wealthsimple, your Cash card is a must-have travel companion.

The Cash Card, as far as a vendor is concerned, looks like a MasterCard. But to you, the card holder, the Cash Card looks like a debit card. Any transaction charged to the Cash Card is instantly debited, so you have to have the money available in your Weathsimple account before you go on a shopping spree.

Signing up for the Cash Card was done online, in minutes. Putting money on your Cash Card can be done using Interac e-transfer from your “usual” bank account, and is available pretty much instantly as well. Cash Card supports Apple Pay and as a nice bonus, also provides you with a “virtual card” accessible from the Wealthsimple app so you can enter credit card details for online purchases. You can also order up a physical card, but I’m still waiting for mine….The Canada Post strike apparently is still being used as an excuse in that regard. (Not a big deal, I rarely use a physical card anymore).

I’ve now successfully used the Cash Card for US dollar and British pound purchases, and the rate I got was exactly the same as the rate I saw in real time from Google (cries quietly at the current exchange rate):

  • Pro: Very easy to set up, does what it says — no extra foreign exchange fees
  • Pro: Supports multiple foreign currencies, with only a few exceptions.
  • Pro: It’s free, and the money in your Cash account actually earns a bit of interest.
  • Con: You have to have the money available up front, it’s not a credit card that you can pay later.

CIBC’s US Dollar Aventura Gold Visa Card + CIBC US Dollar Savings Account

If instead you’re looking for a REAL credit card and you’re only interested in US dollar transactions, then CIBC’s US Dollar Aventura Gold Visa might be a choice. I signed up for this card because a lot of my retirement funds are in US Dollars, I travel and shop in US Dollars pretty regularly, and I happen to bank with CIBC which also makes things easier.

However, unless you already have a US Dollar bank account that can pay off your US Dollar credit card, you’ll need to set that up at the same time. So for that I used the CIBC US Dollar Savings account. This should not be confused with CIBC’s US checking account which isn’t required (I have this account too, but have very limited use for it).

So, applying for these products is the typical Canadian bank experience. Multiple days, multiple forms, mildly unpleasant, but as a self-directed investor, not unusual, either.

The Visa card has an annual fee ($35, which includes up to 3 additional cards) and allows you to collect a small amount of Aventura points which can be redeemed for cash or gift cards. The card supports Apple Pay and generally works like any other card you may have used. Just make sure you don’t accidentally use it for a Canadian dollar transaction or else you’ll get charged that extra conversion fee that you were trying to avoid in the first place.

The savings account pays a paltry amount of interest (0.05% for balances under $10,000 USD) and charges $0.75 USD for every transaction. So, nothing to write home about there. But it is in essence a Canadian bank account in every way; this means (for example) it can be set up as a legitimate bank account with your online broker.

  • Pro: if you’re already banking with CIBC, both the credit card and the savings account are linked to your existing CIBC bank card, so you can see everything from one login.
  • Pro: Related to the above, you can set up auto payment of your USD credit card from your USD savings account
  • Pro: Related to the above, you can easily move money from your Canadian accounts to your US accounts. Of course, with this convenience comes the added foreign exchange fee that you were hoping to avoid, but if you’re short US Dollars, then it’s an option. (In another post, I’ll talk about how I convert US dollars cheaply).
  • Pro: It’s a real credit card, meaning you can defer payment.
  • Con: Compared with Wealthsimple, it’s somewhat painful to set up
  • Con: it’s only useful for US dollar transactions

For most people, the Wealthsimple Cash Card is the easy way to save money on foreign transactions, and the downside is small. If you have access to US dollars (maybe you’re paid in USD, or like me, have investments in USD), then perhaps the CIBC Aventura card might make sense, too.