Overview

Marilyn Piccini Roy is a partner and the head of our Estates, Wills and Trusts Group. Her practice focuses on wealth management, estates, trusts, regimes of protective supervision, and elder law. She serves as counsel to private clients, trust companies and philanthropists, as well as individual and institutional trustees.

Recognized as a leading lawyer in trusts and estates, wealth management and tax planning, Marilyn is also well known for her ability to interact with a wide network of professionals, both in Canada and abroad.

She regularly advises individuals and institutions on multi-jurisdictional matters, particularly issues of private international law, and those dealing with estates, trusts, matrimonial property and regimes of protective supervision. In her international practice, she represents Canadian residents, mainly from Quebec, who own property in the US or Europe, or members of their families living in the US or Europe, as regards estate planning.

Marilyn also advises Quebec retirees vacationing in Florida on all types of estate law issues. Furthermore, she informs clients with respect to the recognition of the rights and powers of foreign liquidators, executors, trustees, tutors or mandataries to act in relation to property situated in Quebec.

Representative files and mandates

Extensive and in-depth experience in reviewing estate and trust documents—from personal trusts in the estate-planning context, to charitable trusts, and private purpose and commercial trusts

Extensive experience in obtaining judicial recognition of foreign wills and probate judgments and providing advice and opinions on private international law issues

Frequently retained to convert common law trusts into trusts governed by Quebec civil law, especially in the context of commercial trusts for financial institutions, and federal and provincial government departments

Drafted many legal opinions on a wide range of estate and trust issues, involving the validity and enforceability of trusts, the construction and interpretation of problematic clauses in testamentary and trust instruments, and the variation and termination of trusts

Retained as an expert witness in estate litigation proceedings instituted in another province, involving an unjust enrichment claim between the estates of two spouses formerly from Quebec

Served as a witness in estate litigation in England with respect to the governing law of a will, and in proceedings in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as the Italian courts, both involving the validity of Quebec estate documents

Prepared many applications to the Superior Court of Quebec for declaratory judgments or judicial directions in contentious estate and trust matters

Marilyn has been involved in several landmark trust decisions that are significant because of the light they shed on the interpretation of the provisions of the law of trusts in the Civil Code of Québec:

Yared v. Karam in 2019, where the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a family residence acquired by a trust is included in the family patrimony

Québec (Curateur Public) c. A.N. (Succession de) in 2014, on the legitimacy of a discretionary trust as an effective estate planning device for a disabled beneficiary, and on the nature of the interest of a discretionary trust beneficiary

Bell c. Molson in 2012, on the investment obligations of trustees, diversification, and exculpatory clauses

Webster-Tweel c. Royal Trust Corporation of Canada in 2010, on trust accounting and the right to supervise trust administration

Fonds Norbourg Placements Équilibrés (Liquidation de) in 2007, on the concept of the trust patrimony

Piccini et Talpis in 2006, on the recognition of a foreign trust holding immovable property in Quebec

In the matter of the Estate of the Late Donald Speirs Dufty: The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company c. Raymond Chabot Inc. in 2001, on the cy-près doctrine

Royal Trust c. Webster in 2000, on the duration of personal trusts

Relevant examples of her expertise in trusts include:

Advising the trustees of a family trust on income and capital distributions, cash reserves, trustee remuneration, record-keeping, and disclosure issues

Acting for a foreign institutional trustee of an offshore trust with Canadian resident beneficiaries in a novel restructuring to minimize the incidence of Canadian tax

Advising a family law lawyer in a contentious marital breakdown in determination of entitlements, where most assets were held in a discretionary trust

Acting for Canadian and US citizens on the cross-border tax implications of their trust and estate plans, including the use of trusts to hold US real property or securities

Establishing trusts for private foundations

Advising German legal counsel on the validity and enforceability of a Quebec commercial trust with respect to the acquisition of shares of a gold fund

Drafting numerous commercial trusts for a variety of purposes—for example, holding real estate, appliance service contracts, insurance funds, escrowed funds, and investment and mutual funds

Drafting trusts for independent retirement pension plans

Reviewing a Quebec trust for petrochemical pollution clean-up purposes for the Quebec government

Providing advice on and drafting numerous special needs trusts for the disabled

Advising pension plan administrators on payments from an executive pension plan

Advising on numerous applications for judicial amendment and termination of trusts

Extensive experience in drafting Aboriginal trusts, such as:

Providing advice and a legal opinion with respect to the interpretation of criteria for a financial advisor in the context of an Aboriginal trust

Drafting an aboriginal trust agreement for a Quebec First Nation and negotiating terms with the corporate trustee

Advising trustees on the operation of Aboriginal trusts

Opining on the partition and distribution of a trust for Inuit beneficiaries

Reviewing the French version of an aboriginal health care agreement

Providing a legal opinion in respect of five different aboriginal trust agreements established under Quebec law for housing, education and public transit purposes

Assisting in the review and drafting of a First Nations’ marine wildlife research trust

Drafting trusts for federal compensation grants to Inuit

Practice Areas

• Civil Litigation
• Family Law
• Class Action Plaintiff
• Taxation Law
• Estates & Trusts

Bar Information

Called to the bar: 1984 (QC)