Do I file Form T1255 as the executor of my father's estate?
Yes, where the estate is designating a home the deceased owned as a principal residence. The designation for a deceased person is made by the legal representative, which is usually the executor named in the will or the administrator appointed by the court. It is not made by the beneficiaries, and it is not made by whoever ends up living in the house. Your authority to sign comes from that appointment, so the first thing to settle is that the appointment is in order and that you are the person the Canada Revenue Agency will accept as acting for the estate.
My mother owned only one home, does the estate still have to designate it?
Yes. Owning a single home makes the designation straightforward; it does not make it automatic. A death is treated as a disposal even though nobody has sold anything, so a gain is measured to the date of death, and the designation by the legal representative is what claims the qualifying years against it. The work is the ownership and occupancy history rather than the arithmetic. If nobody makes the designation, the estate is simply left holding a measured disposal with nothing claimed against it.
Can a beneficiary file the designation instead of the executor?
No. The designation belongs to the deceased's final return and is made by the legal representative on it. Beneficiaries receive the property; they do not make the deceased's designation, and they cannot make it later on their own returns. What happens to the property afterwards in a beneficiary's hands is a separate question, dealt with on their own filings when they come to sell. Where several family members are involved it is worth saying this early, because the assumption that the person who inherits the house deals with the house causes real delay.
Do we designate the home if the estate sells it after the death?
There are two events and they are handled in two places. The designation on the final return deals with the deceased's position up to the date of death, and the deceased's part of the story stops there. A sale by the estate afterwards belongs to the estate's own accounts and is reported in them. Executors regularly conflate the two and try to put everything on one filing, which either overstates the designation or loses it altogether. Separate the timeline at the date of death and the two filings become obvious.
My father lived overseas for years, does that affect the designation?
It can, and it is the reason these estates take longer. Time spent outside Canada bears directly on which years qualify, so the ownership history has to be set out year by year rather than assumed from the purchase and the death. Before anything is filed, gather the dates the deceased left and returned, evidence of who occupied the home in between, and the ownership documents for the whole period. Where that record is thin, the honest answer is that the years claimed have to follow the evidence rather than the family's recollection.
Is the designation filed with the terminal return or with the estate return?
The terminal return. It is made once, by the legal representative, on the final return of the deceased, and the estate's own returns then cover the period after the date of death. If the final return has already gone in without the designation, that is a correction to that return rather than something to add to a later estate filing. Executors who realise this a year in usually find the practical problem is not the rule but the records, because the file has been closed and the house has moved on.
Are US-listed ETFs US-situs property for a non-resident's estate?
Shares issued by a US company are generally US-situs for estate tax purposes, and a fund domiciled in the United States is a US company however global its holdings. A fund domiciled elsewhere that holds the same underlying stocks generally is not. That distinction — the domicile of the wrapper rather than the location of the investments — is why cross-border portfolios get restructured, and it should be confirmed against your own holdings before anything is sold. See US estate tax exposure for Canadians.
What is RNOR status?
Resident but not ordinarily resident — a transitional category in India between non-residence and full residence, reached on the day counts after returning from a period abroad. While it lasts, certain foreign income stays outside the Indian tax base, which makes the timing of a return to India worth planning rather than leaving to chance. It is temporary, and the window is set by the day-count rules. See RNOR status.
