Does the matrimonial home still get Family Law Act protection if it's legally owned by a corporation?

This is a genuinely complicated area, and the answer isn't a simple yes or no. The Family Law Act's specific matrimonial home protections generally require a spouse to hold an interest in the property itself, and where a home is legally owned by a corporation rather than by a spouse personally, with the spouse instead holding shares in that corporation, the direct statutory protections around consent to sell and possession don't automatically apply in the same straightforward way they would if the spouse owned the home directly.

This has made corporate ownership a structure some people consider, deliberately or otherwise, in relation to family property, but it isn't a guaranteed way around matrimonial home rules. Courts have shown willingness to look past a corporate structure in appropriate cases, particularly where it appears used mainly to defeat a spouse's legitimate rights, and the underlying use of the property as an actual family residence can still be relevant to how a court treats the situation, including in the overall equalization analysis. Because the interaction between corporate ownership and matrimonial home protection is unsettled and fact-specific, and the stakes for a spouse relying on this structure, or challenging it, are significant, anyone facing this should get legal advice from a lawyer experienced in both family law and corporate structures.