Oh it makes perfect sense and I hear where you coming from. Also Canadian but have US citizenship for the purpose of protecting myself in the event that husband goes first. I love the States, see myself being here forever, but I fought the citizenship route due to having to "renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen". Like it or not the citizenship route is the best way to go to avoid problems. Second best is the qualified domestic trust. The trust can be done post mortum actually. We looked into this trust, but if I remember correctly the big factor was that IÂd pay estate taxes on any disbursement of the principle unless I could prove hardship. No putting off the estate tax until I died if I cut into the principle. I just didnÂt want to let the IRS interpret "hardship". There were also a lot of loopholes and situations put forth by our CPA, which I cant remember that made the citizenship route the way to go. I took the easiest and best way out. Decided since we see ourselves here permanently, no longer vote in Canada or pay taxes there and live under the laws and constitution of the US and abide and support them I could take the oath with its nasty part and mean it. Not likely the US and Canada are going to war against each other and I will have to go back on my oath. And actually if I had to go back on the allegiance part of the oath, I would just move back home. You can always say your Canadian. You just donÂt say it to US Customs. Linked is an article on Trust and Estate Planning Considerations When Advising Canadians Living in the US Here is a link that might be useful: expat canadians in us estate and tax planning

I didn't read all the responses, please forgive me if I'm repeating something. Any time a seller suddenly won't speak to you, yells, says, spitefully, that (s)he has sold the house to someone else ("You didn't play with that doll so I gave it to some other little girl")... in my experience, none of this has anything to do with what's really going on. I'd bet a dollar that the condo won't pass a mold test, & the seller is angry because she thought you didn't know enough to check. Find yourself a good, nice, experienced Realtor & don't put yourself through this kind of nonsense & who knows what other shenanigans an unscrupulous seller might pull. On the question of whether it's meant to be, I'd say 1. you had a narrow escape & 2. a couple of times in my career, I've had buyer clients whose sincere attempts to buy a home seemed to be "snakebit". No matter what we tried, we could not get the sellers to sell! Reasons included: new husband thinks his wife's house should sell for more than list price, even though my buyers offered full price, hoping that the house would squeak through the appraisal. seller's kids decided to buy the old home place. seller decided to rent the house out instead. seller decided that the house might be worth more in the future because the city had announced that the road was to be widened to carry the traffic (!) house was available the morning I called for an appointment but was under contract by the time I reached the listing agent after 9 PM to tell him we were to write a contract next day. One couple made 8 "shopping trips" & wrote 8 offers, & I think the other couple wrote at least 7. Both couples are now living in beautiful homes that far exceed anything we'd been trying to get: one home had been reduced into our price range on the day we looked at it it had a nursery & a fenced yard & was in a neighborhood of young families, ideal for this couple who were ready to start a family), & the other had had a sale fall through, & the sellers were moving & had to sell pronto. That home, unlike the other 1970's-era homes we'd seen (plastic "Spanish" carving on cabinets, etc) had been modernized & had beautiful trees. I wish you the best.

Recently a number of (mainly seniors) have been using a certain type of investment (unit trusts) that paid quite a high rate of return, some of it tax advantaged in the recipient's hands, plus some of it return of part of one's originally invested money. Such companies that structured themselves to pay out most of their earnings to shareholders were allowed to escape paying corporate tax. Some people who owned a somewhat different type of investment, stocks of Canadian companies, paying a much lower rate of return felt that they were being unfairly treated, and quite a few were leaving the type of investment that they'd been using to buy the other type. So the government changed the rules of calculating tax on the second type of income relative to 2006, with a view to encouraging a number of taxpayers to stay put. Until 2005, a single "taxpayer" who'd earned somewhere around $27,000 - 30,000. of solely that kind of income had a couple of types of credits work to allow them to have their tax liability reduced to zero. The differing method of calculation in 2006 allowed the level of the single "taxpayer's" income from solely that type of income to increase to $46,345. before becoming liable to pay one cent of income tax ... except the $600. Ontario Health Levy in this province. Would that my Member of Parliament's office were to notify every constituent annually of all the changes to the tax code, especially ways that some fortunate people could avoid paying tax at all up to over $45,000. ... ... but I'm not holding my breath, waiting for such a day! The person who told me of it was a C.A. who'd been an accountant (I think controller) of a substantial local company, prior to his retirement (with no pension) a couple of years ago. We've attended a monthly study group learning about investments for over 7 years (sometimes travel together to the meeting) ... I've learned a lot in that group. The government recently changed the tax rules relative to the first type of investment ... not allowing the corporations to avoid income tax, even if they agree to pay out most of their income. The value of that market lost billions overnight ... I can send any of you interested some delicious cartoons related to that! Recovered a substantial portion of it, later. In the light of that ... they may change the rules again next year relative to the second type of income, to increase the rate of income tax on it to more or less previous levels. Good wishes for learning more about the effective use of your income and assets. ole joyful

I am not sure about a 401K, but you can take money out of an IRA to put down on a house without penalty. You still have to pay income taxes on it. If you take the BF's take-home income and subtract court-ordered child support, whatever he is required to pay for daycare, if anything, one half of his daughter's medical bills, and one half of her extracurricular activities (I would estimate that half would be at least $50 a month), then subtract whatever he spends on his vehicle and on his hobbies and any remaining debt, the remainder is what he has available to contribute to the household. Also keep in mind that private independent schools and some colleges will take your income, subtract about $30,000, subtract whatever you pay in student loans, and then compute the expected contribution from your income as 30% of the remainder. (There are a few other things they subtract, but that is most of it). If your income is $200K, that amount will exceed the cost of a private school, so the daughter can forget going to a private high school and likely forget getting much financial aid for college either, even if she is living with her mother. Unless of course you are willing to pay for it. On the other hand, if neither parent is remarried, and the mother earns, as an example, $30,000, the schools will estimate their expected contribution at somewhere around $10,000, I believe, making her eligible for quite a bit of financial aid. Of course these figures are far from exact, and would be affected by any additional children or medical bills, etc, and you obviously shouldn't take my word for it because I am not a financial planner. A prenup will not affect what the schools or the government determines is the Expected Family Contribution. In my opinion, if a wealthy prospective spouse is not prepared to pay for independent school and for college for the stepchildren, then it is unfair for them to marry and screw up their stepchildren's lives, financially speaking.