If your client owns a small business, find out whether any of his or her children are interested and capable of taking it over in the coming years, says Brodie Mulholland, vice president and wills and estates consultant with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. in Vancouver.

“If the children are not interested, the client will probably say he or she wants it sold and the proceeds distributed to his or her beneficiaries,” Mulholland says. “And the client may expect to sell it during his lifetime. But what if something happens to the client in the next few years?”

The most complicated planning will be required if the client has a family business and several children, Mulholland adds, especially if the children have varying degrees of interest in the business. As he points out: “How can your client’s estate plan provide for all three children?”

If the client has enough assets, he or she can equalize the estate by leaving the business to one child and other assets to the others. But if the business is your client’s chief asset, says Jack Morris, president of Morris Financial Group in Winnipeg, life insurance has a role to play in equalizing the estate and ensuring that all children receive bequests of equal value. Life insurance can also pay the capital gains taxes on the business.

— ROSEMARY MCCRACKEN