Practice Emphasis
Andrew practices a wide range of civil litigation with a twin focus on business or commercial disputes, including breach of contract and enforcement, and estate litigation, including wills variation claims, in-trust claims and other estate-related litigation.
Practice Areas
Litigation
Andrew has appeared in all court levels of British Columbia and before various tribunals. He has acted for clients in a variety of complex claims, representing companies, shareholders or shareholder groups, strata corporations, property owners and property owner groups, beneficiaries, estate executors and trustees. Andrew has been involved in debt collection and enforcement for both private and institutional lenders.
Estate Claims
Andrew has appeared in many cases involving the disputed status of a beneficiary, disputed or missing estate assets, determinations of trusts, wills variations, wills rectification or curing, and many other estate claims. Andrew has been appointed by the Public Trustee to represent clients in a variety of estate-related matters, and has also represented private individuals in estate claims. Together with associate, Chris Hart, Andrew teaches estate litigation at the Thompson Rivers University School of Law.
Education and Interests
Education
- BA from the University of Victoria in 1993.
- LLB from the University of British Columbia in 1997.
- Law Clerk at the British Columbia Court of Appeal 1998.
- Called to the British Columbia Bar in 1999.
Professional and Civic Interests
- Member of the Vernon Bar Association
- Member of the BC Trial Lawyers Association
- President of the Vernon Art Gallery
- Member of the Society for Injured Riders
- Elected Representative of the Canadian Bar Association (BC Branch) provincial council
- Past Director of the BC Liberal Constituency Association for the Okanagan-Monashee
- Past Director of the Vernon Performing Arts Centre
- Past Director of the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce
Recent Decisions
Trying to find missing beneficiaries
(or, how to deal with a receding heir line) Written by Andrew Powell, Partner One of the main functions of an executor or estate administrator is locating heirs and other people who may benefit from the estate – these people need notice that someone has died. Under s.121 of the Wills, Estates and Succession […]
Challenging the will gains 50%
A man died, leaving all of his assets including a large piece of valuable land to his common-law spouse. The assets had been jointly held with the spouse, so she received them all by right of survivorship; and moreover the Deceased’s will left all his estate to the spouse as well. Andrew challenged both the […]
Full ownership of property received
Andrew represented the widow of a man who died leaving her all his property, which was a very significant amount of land. The Deceased’s siblings sued, arguing that in fact the man had not owned the property, but rather had held in trust for them for decades, following the death of their own parents. They […]
Evidence confimed they were spouses
Andrew represented a bereaved woman whose relationship status with respect to a deceased man was challenged by the deceased’s family: they said that she was not his common law spouse, citing that she had a home in a different city, had been seeing the deceased only informally for a relatively short period of time, and […]
Variation of a will results in an increased inheritance
Andrew filed an action for the variation of a will on behalf of the child of a deceased: the child was one of four beneficiaries, was not in regular contact with the deceased, and had been left a sizeable inheritance already; however following examinations for discovery we were able to settle the matter and increased […]
Indian Act & common law result in case being dismissed
The Deceased, a member of the Okanagan Indian Band, left a will dividing the residue of his estate between five people, some of whom were not members of the Band. Part of the estate consisted of interests in properties within the Okanagan Indian Reserve. The beneficiaries reached an agreement between themselves providing for the sharing […]
Varying the will results in an increase to 50% of the estate
A property owner died leaving a will that provided for his common law spouse to receive, from his estate, only the increase in value of his property while the two were living together. This value amounted to a total of about 7% of the value of the man’s estate. Andrew sued to vary the will, […]
