Your First Meeting with a Divorce Lawyer: How to Prepare
Are you gearing up for your first meeting with a divorce lawyer? If so, you might have some concerns about what to expect, and how you should prepare. After all, it’s a crucial initial step that can significantly impact the outcome of your divorce proceedings. 1. What’s the Objective? The initial consultation with your lawyer has three main goals: To convey the needed background facts and...
Online Security Tips During Your Divorce
Divorce is a challenging time. It’s filled with emotional and logistical hurdles. One aspect that can easily be overlooked is online security. In Canada – as in many parts of the world – people increasingly rely on digital communication, and on online services. This means it’s become crucial to protect your personal information at all times, but especially during your divorce. Here are some...
Ontario Family Law: Forgiveness (a.k.a. “Rescission”) of Child Support Arrears
Child support is a crucial aspect of Family Law in Ontario. If you are one of the parents of a child, it’s a mutual obligation that each of you has, regardless of your marital status. And it’s a stringent obligation, since the law makes it clear that your child is entitled to benefit from the financial support that each of you owe. If you are separated or divorced, you may be subject to a...
Criminal Charges in High-Conflict Canadian Divorces
Divorce is hard at the best of times. A high-conflict divorce is always extra challenging. But if one of the spouses has been charged with a criminal offence, then the stakes are higher and the complexities, greater. Here are some points to consider: Divorce Act Provisions on Family Violence We will assume that the criminal charges against one spouse stem from an incident of domestic...
What is the Office of the Children’s Lawyer?
For those of you who are parents and are involved in Family Litigation in Ontario, you may have heard about the Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL). This brief blog will touch upon the basics points you need to know about this provincial government entity. What is the OCL? The Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL) operates as a specialized Ontario government agency,...
What is the Legal Age at Which a Child Can Decide Which Parent to Live With?
At our firm, there is one common question we routinely field from clients and potential clients going through a separation and divorce: “At what age can my child decide which parent they are going to live with?” In Canada, there is no defined age. Neither the federal nor provincial laws address this specifically. But that doesn’t mean the question is entirely up in the air. Both the...
“Exclusive Possession” of Your Matrimonial Home: What Does it Mean?
Many of you might know that under the Ontario Family Law Act (FLA), your matrimonial home has special status once you decide to separate from and divorce your spouse. At that point, your matrimonial home (defined as every property that “was at the time of separation ordinarily occupied by the person and his or her spouse as their family residence”) is subject to special rules governing how it...
Marriage Versus Common-Law in Ontario – What’s the Difference?
According to the latest reports by Statistics Canada, marriage rates have been on the decline in the past few years, while common-law relationships have been on the rise. This ebb and flow in the popularity of each is due to many factors, of course. But at least some of them relate to the differences between each type of relationship union. MARRIAGE Beginning Requires obtaining a marriage...
What Are the Grounds for Divorce in Ontario?
We get this question at our Firm all the time: What are the grounds for getting a divorce from my spouse? What do I have to prove, to be eligible? Is there a waiting period? These are all simple questions, and they do have simple answers – but that still doesn’t mean that establishing you are eligible for a divorce is necessarily easy. Related: Divorce Process in Ontario Grounds for Divorce...