800 plain-language Q&As about family. Browse below, or search the whole library.
Yes. The Divorce Act's definition of family violence, added in the 2021 reforms, expressly includes financial abuse as one of the recognized forms of…
Read the full answer →A foreign custody or parenting order generally isn't automatically enforceable in Ontario the moment it's made elsewhere — Ontario's Children's Law…
Read the full answer →It depends on the facts, but it isn't automatic — being someone's partner and being involved in a child's life is not, by itself, the same as being a…
Read the full answer →Yes. Ontario's parenting law focuses on the actual relationship between the adult and the child, not on whether the adult is the child's legal parent,…
Read the full answer →A former stepparent isn't the child's legal parent just by virtue of the relationship with the biological or adoptive parent, so they don't…
Read the full answer →Yes. A former stepparent who stood in the place of a parent to a child during the relationship can be ordered to continue paying child support after…
Read the full answer →When a payor falls behind on court-ordered or agreement-based child or spousal support, the Family Responsibility Office (FRO) can move to suspend…
Read the full answer →Yes, garnishing a payor's bank account is one of the enforcement tools available to the Family Responsibility Office when support is in default. FRO's…
Read the full answer →Dividends a payor draws from their own corporation aren't automatically shielded from support enforcement simply because they come through a corporate…
Read the full answer →The Family Responsibility Office's enforcement powers extend well beyond regular wages, and a lump sum such as a lottery win or money owed to the payor…
Read the full answer →Whether a trust distribution can be reached to satisfy support arrears depends significantly on the specific terms of the trust and the payor's actual…
Read the full answer →The Family Responsibility Office has tools designed specifically to track down a payor's current employer even when they change jobs frequently, since…
Read the full answer →Retirement savings are not automatically placed entirely out of reach of support enforcement just because they're held in a registered account like an…
Read the full answer →The Family Responsibility Office's enforcement powers extend to certain federal payments owed to a payor, and a tax refund can fall within that reach…
Read the full answer →A frozen embryo that hasn't been transferred and used to establish a pregnancy is not itself a child with legal parents — parentage only becomes a live…
Read the full answer →Yes. Financial disclosure is mandatory in Ontario family law proceedings. Both spouses are legally required to provide complete and honest disclosure…
Read the full answer →A joint bank account can complicate, but doesn't automatically prevent, garnishment where one account holder owes support arrears. Because funds in a…
Read the full answer →Generally, yes. A temporary care and custody agreement is meant to be time-limited by law, and once it lapses without being renewed or replaced by a…
Read the full answer →Yes, a grandparent isn't required to wait for the parents' own parenting case to finish before applying for contact, though whether it's the right time…
Read the full answer →Yes. The death of the grandparent's own child - the grandchild's parent - doesn't remove a grandparent's ability to apply for contact; if anything,…
Read the full answer →Yes. A parent's decision to limit or refuse a grandparent's contact carries real weight, and where a parent has a genuine, well-founded reason - such…
Read the full answer →An existing bond isn't a strict legal precondition, but it's one of the most persuasive things a grandparent can bring to a contact application.…
Read the full answer →Not automatically, but it isn't necessarily lost either. Once a child is in a children's aid society's care, decisions about who the child sees,…
Read the full answer →If the parents reconcile after a period of separation, any existing grandparent contact order or arrangement doesn't automatically end just because the…
Read the full answer →It's possible, but it's a harder case than one where at least one parent supports contact, since courts generally give real weight to a united position…
Read the full answer →Financial support can be relevant evidence, but it isn't the deciding factor on its own. What courts focus on for standing and for the best-interests…
Read the full answer →Yes, in many situations it makes more sense for a grandparent to ask to intervene in an existing parenting case between the parents rather than…
Read the full answer →A grandparent doesn't need either parent's consent to start a contact application - a non-parent can bring their own application to the family court…
Read the full answer →If a parent relocates in a way that significantly limits an existing grandparent contact order or arrangement, a grandparent has a few realistic…
Read the full answer →Yes. If a children's aid society is looking to place a grandchild into its own care, a grandparent can come forward and ask to be considered instead -…
Read the full answer →Yes, this is actually a common way grandparent contact is structured in practice, particularly where the grandparent is connected to one parent's side…
Read the full answer →The grave risk defense allows a court to refuse to return a child under the Hague Convention where doing so would expose the child to a grave risk of…
Read the full answer →Parents can include an agreed income figure in a separation agreement for child support calculation purposes, but there are important limits. A court…
Read the full answer →Yes. Both the Federal and Ontario Child Support Guidelines include a mandatory annual income disclosure obligation. Each parent is required to provide…
Read the full answer →Yes. Children of unmarried parents have the same right to support as children of married parents. In Ontario, the Ontario Child Support Guidelines…
Read the full answer →The length of a common-law relationship does not determine whether a parent owes child support. The obligation to support a child arises from…
Read the full answer →Yes, the vast majority of child support orders in Ontario are made on consent — meaning both parents agree on the amount and a judge makes the order…
Read the full answer →Courts in Ontario can attribute some or all of a corporation's retained earnings (or pre-tax income) as available income to a payor who controls that…
Read the full answer →Under the Federal Child Support Guidelines (for divorcing parents), a "child of the marriage" is a child under 18, or a child who is 18 or older and…
Read the full answer →Child support under the Child Support Guidelines is based on gross annual income, not net income after taxes. This is a common point of confusion,…
Read the full answer →Income earned abroad is generally included in the child support income calculation in Ontario, regardless of where it is earned or whether it is…
Read the full answer →Yes, both dividends and investment income are included in the income calculation under the Child Support Guidelines. The Guidelines define income…
Read the full answer →Under the Child Support Guidelines, the starting point for calculating a parent's income is their total income as stated on line 15000 of the federal…
Read the full answer →Yes, both overtime pay and one-time bonuses are generally included in annual income for child support purposes. The Guidelines use total annual income…
Read the full answer →Yes, rental income is included in a payor's income for child support purposes under the Child Support Guidelines. All sources of annual income that…
Read the full answer →When a payor fails to provide proper financial disclosure or appears to be hiding income, the court has tools to protect the child's interests. The…
Read the full answer →Having a new child can affect the amount of child support owed to a prior child, but it does not automatically reduce it. The payor must demonstrate…
Read the full answer →When a payor leaves Canada, the obligation to pay child support does not disappear — but enforcement becomes significantly more complex. Ontario can…
Read the full answer →Under the Federal Child Support Guidelines, the provincial table that applies is the table for the province where the payor parent ordinarily resides.…
Read the full answer →Yes, when a payor conceals an income increase, courts are more willing to award a significant retroactive amount going back to the date the increase…
Read the full answer →Schedule III of the Child Support Guidelines lists specific adjustments that are made to a parent's income before applying the support tables. These…
Read the full answer →Under the Child Support Guidelines, the special shared-custody calculation applies when a child spends at least 40 percent of the time with each…
Read the full answer →Child support and spousal support are two separate legal obligations with different rules, purposes, and calculations. Child support is governed by the…
Read the full answer →The Ontario child support tables are organized by annual income (in increments) and number of children. To use them, you need to know the payor's gross…
Read the full answer →No. Child support payments made under a court order or written agreement made after April 30, 1997, are neither deductible by the payor nor taxable to…
Read the full answer →Undue hardship is a limited exception built into the Child Support Guidelines that allows a court to order an amount different from the standard table…
Read the full answer →Voluntary payments made without a court order or written agreement may or may not receive credit if support is later formally established. Courts have…
Read the full answer →The base monthly child support amount from the Guidelines tables is designed to cover a child's ordinary, day-to-day expenses. These include food,…
Read the full answer →The Child Support Guidelines table amounts apply in the vast majority of cases, but several situations allow a court to depart from the standard table…
Read the full answer →A child's habitual residence for Hague Convention purposes is a factual question, not a legal label fixed by a parenting order or a parent's stated…
Read the full answer →Some help is available, but it's generally limited to general information rather than drafting or reviewing documents for you. Court staff at a Family…
Read the full answer →Related-party transactions, such as a business paying inflated fees to a company owned by a family member, selling assets below market value to a…
Read the full answer →RRSPs and TFSAs are assets included in net family property at their account balance on the valuation date. For RRSPs, the value included is typically…
Read the full answer →Under the federal Divorce Act, courts deciding a relocation application apply the best interests of the child test with a specific set of factors for…
Read the full answer →Yes. A valid marriage contract (sometimes called a prenuptial agreement) can modify many of the default equalization rules under the Family Law Act.…
Read the full answer →Divorce in Canada is governed by the federal Divorce Act, which applies uniformly across all provinces including Ontario. To get a divorce, at least…
Read the full answer →No — equalization and a 50/50 split of assets are very different, and confusing them is one of the most common misconceptions in family law. Ontario's…
Read the full answer →Equalization and spousal support are separate legal entitlements under Ontario family law, but they interact in practice. Equalization is a one-time…
Read the full answer →An inheritance received from someone other than your spouse during the marriage can be excluded from your net family property — meaning you keep the…
Read the full answer →There's no fixed or guaranteed timeline — how quickly a genuinely urgent motion gets in front of a judge depends on the specific courthouse, its…
Read the full answer →Hague return applications are treated as urgent and are generally prioritized well ahead of ordinary family litigation, reflecting the Convention's…
Read the full answer →Child support in Ontario is calculated using the Federal Child Support Guidelines, which apply to divorcing spouses under the Divorce Act, and the…
Read the full answer →If you and your spouse disagree about when you separated, a court will determine the date based on the evidence. Because the separation date affects…
Read the full answer →If one spouse ends the marriage with more debts than assets — a negative net family property — the Family Law Act requires that their NFP be treated as…
Read the full answer →Net family property is the value of everything you own on your valuation date (usually the date you separated) minus everything you owed on that date,…
Read the full answer →Ontario courts — and courts applying the federal Divorce Act — use a "best interests of the child" test to set parenting time. Judges look at a list of…
Read the full answer →Property division in Ontario on divorce is governed by the provincial Family Law Act, not the federal Divorce Act. Ontario uses an equalization model…
Read the full answer →Assets are valued at their fair market value on the valuation date — the price a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in an open market. For liquid…
Read the full answer →Ontario courts and lawyers use the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (SSAG) as a practical starting point. These are not binding law but are widely…
Read the full answer →The formula is: subtract one spouse's net family property from the other's, then divide by two. The spouse with the lower net family property receives…
Read the full answer →A temporary care and custody agreement is meant to be short-term by design - it's a voluntary alternative to going to court, not a substitute for one…
Read the full answer →The timeline varies significantly depending on whether your divorce is uncontested or contested. For an uncontested divorce — where both spouses agree…
Read the full answer →It isn't possible to state a reliable "typical" length for either process, since both depend heavily on the complexity of the issues, how cooperative…
Read the full answer →The time to finalize a separation agreement in Ontario varies widely depending on how cooperative the parties are, how complex their finances are, and…
Read the full answer →The duration of spousal support depends on the length of the relationship, the ages of the spouses, the presence of children, and the recipient's…
Read the full answer →There's no fixed or reliable timeline, and it varies considerably from case to case and courthouse to courthouse — the process generally moves through…
Read the full answer →Under the federal Divorce Act, the standard ground for divorce in Canada is that the spouses have lived separate and apart for at least one year. This…
Read the full answer →There's no set number of missed visits that automatically justifies a contempt motion, because the test isn't really about counting incidents. What…
Read the full answer →For equalization purposes, the matrimonial home is valued at its fair market value on the valuation date, which is the date of separation. Fair market…
Read the full answer →The cost of an uncontested divorce in Ontario has two main components: court filing fees and any legal fees you pay. Court filing fees are set by the…
Read the full answer →There's no fixed rule dictating how a parenting coordinator's fees must be divided; this is generally set out in the parenting coordination agreement…
Read the full answer →In Ontario, spousal support is determined under the federal Divorce Act (for married spouses who divorce) and the provincial Family Law Act (for…
Read the full answer →To change a parenting time order in Ontario, you generally need to show that there has been a material change in circumstances since the original order…
Read the full answer →Uncontested divorce applications in Ontario are filed at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Ontario does not have a standalone "divorce court" —…
Read the full answer →An application for exclusive possession is made to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, including its Unified Family Court branch in regions where…
Read the full answer →Generally yes. Under the Divorce Act and Ontario's Children's Law Reform Act, a parent who does not have decision-making responsibility is usually…
Read the full answer →To give your separation agreement the strongest chance of being enforced in Ontario, focus on four things: form, disclosure, understanding, and…
Read the full answer →To succeed on a spousal support claim, you need to show entitlement, need (or economic disadvantage), and the payor's ability to pay. The evidence…
Read the full answer →In an Ontario divorce application, proving the one-year separation period is primarily done through a sworn affidavit — a written statement you sign…
Read the full answer →An urgent, without-notice motion is brought by filing the motion materials, including a supporting affidavit that explains both the urgency and why…
Read the full answer →Links go to the official consolidated text. Legislation changes — confirm you are reading the current version.
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