Non US Citizen CDNS & Wills

[Emancipation 2]

Hi everyone! Haven't been here forever but am no stranger to the K-1 visa journey. We're working on US citizenship for me, but hasn't happened yet.

Wanted to tell my friendly CDN family about our experience writing a will with me being a CDN citizen. We spent the big bucks to get it done right and our lawyer was great at helping us navigate through the murky waters of cross border marriage. He told us that I cannot be an executor alone on the will should something happen to DH. Basically a US citizen must always be on a US will. Since I'm not, my BIL will be listed on the will as a coexecutor. Once I get my CDN citizenship we can go back to the lawyer and change this (for a fee of course), but legally I can't stand alone on the will. AND the other big thing that they told me was that with the money that is in trust - it cannot be used to purchase property outside the US. SO.. there will be no going back home and purchasing land. I can do anything else with the money but purchase property.

I just thought those two stipulations were interesting and not something that I had thought of before. They may or may not be relevant to someone thinking about citizenship. My main reason for going for citizenship (so I thought) was to protect the funds in the estate from being taxed higher because I was not a citizen. It turns out that's really only for LARGE estates that taxation gets involved for non-US citizens, so that's no longer an issue. A greater issue now is to be an executor of my husbands' estate and to not leave that burden on his brother. Just food for thought.

[Udella&Wiz 325]

Hey Emance! How are you?

That is really interesting to know - I'm about a month or 2 away from citizenship and we were considering gettign our wills redone. I may just wait now until I can prove citizenship.

So I'm curious - down the road if something happened to the hubster, I as the spouse would inherit everything (let's say the will indicates that) - do you mean to tell me I cannot take our $$$ and do as I wish - which might include selling our house here and moving back to Canada? I'm sure there'd be some estate taxes or capital gains involved?

Thanks

[Ontarkie 14,218]

Oh wow that is something to think about for sure. I would not in my wildest dreams would of thought something like could happen. So glad you posted about this.

Welcome back

[Hugglebuggles 60]

Hi Em! Nice seeing you!

That's pretty interesting stuff! I definitely don't have a will... I always assumed it was just for older people or people with a lot of money. I recently read an article about the importance of wills and It seems like something everyone should had. In the least, it will help the people you leave behind.

[Emancipation 2]

It's good to be back albeit briefly!

Basically - our will is set up to go into a Trust... and that trust is a US trust - so no, I can't do whatever I want with the money. It can't be used to purchase property in foreign countries. Of course I could dispose of the house, assets etc. Stateside, but say I move back to Canada - I can do whatever I want with the money in the trust but not purchase property. I"m not sure exactly why or the hows about that, but it's the advise our lawyer gave us. Basically the money in a US trust can't be used for foreign property. Now could I dispose of the trust and will and start all over again with a CDN will? I assume I can... but that's probably a different jurisdiction and a different set of laws.

[Krikit 1,164]

Welcome back, E. It's nice to see you.

Thanks for the great info. I am going to link to it in the Canada Immigration Guide.

[Kimbear 53]

Wow that's definitely something good to know. We were just thinking of wills recently too with the house shopping stuff too.