A court has limited jurisdiction to vary a final Order for spousal support on a temporary basis (Crawford v. Dixon 14 RFL (5th) 267 Ont SCJ). The moving party must demonstrate that he/she has a prima facie case, there must be a clear case of “hardship or urgency and the applicant must come to court with clean hands”. The court will look at the means of the parties and determine if...
Section 31 of the Family Law Act states that “Every parent has an obligation to provide support for his or her unmarried child who is a minor or is enrolled in a full time program of education, to the extent that the parent is capable of doing so. The support obligation does not extend to a child who is 16 yrs of age or older and has withdrawn from parental control”. (more…)
Adult Children (ie. over the age of 18 yrs) are only entitled to child support if they are dependents as defined by the Divorce Act and the Family Law Act. An adult child is entitled to child support if he/she is “enrolled in a full time program of education”. Various court decisions have held that it is not sufficient for the adult child to simply be enrolled in school on a...
Common Law Spouses are defined as those couples that are not married and have a child or have resided together in a relationship for three years or more. (more…)
There is a recent decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal, Webb v. Birkett, wherein the court held that Family Law Lawyers, whether engaged in mediation, the collaborative law process, or any other process, has a duty to obtain full and complete financial disclosure, unless the client, being properly informed, waives the requirement.
The Court of Appeal held that it is the duty of every lawyer...
This is a difficult issue for a lot of payors. However, a party has to recognize that a marriage is a partnership. Once the partnership breaks down one party may have to compensate the other party. (more…)
This section provides that in determining a person’s income for child support purposes, you must look at the total income until line 150 in a person’s Income Tax Return and adjust the income as required by Schedule III to the Guidelines. (more…)
This section of the Guidelines provides that a court may “award an amount that is different from the amount determined under the Guidelines, if the court finds that the spouse making the request, or a child in respect of whom the request is made, would otherwise suffer undue hardship”. Although the Guidelines does not specifically define “undue hardship”, the court...
This section addresses the situation when a spouse “exercises a right of access to, or has physical custody of, a child for not less than 40% of the time over the course of a year”. (more…)
Split custody is when each parent has custody of one or more of the children. The Act provides that the “amount of a child support order is the difference between the amount that each spouse would otherwise pay if a child support order was sought against each of the spouses”. (more…)