Can a Common-Law Partner Be Forced to Leave the Home in Ontario?

If your partner tells you to leave the home you share, and you are not married, you may be worried about where you stand. Married spouses have special rules about the family home. Common-law partners are treated differently.

This article explains why those rules do not reach unmarried partners, what usually matters instead, and what other rights you may still have. Because the answer often turns on who owns the home or whose name is on the lease, it is worth speaking with a lawyer quickly.

Why the matrimonial home rules do not help you

The Family Law Act defines a matrimonial home as property ordinarily occupied by a person and his or her spouse as their family residence. In that part of the Act, spouse means two persons who are married to each other or who have entered into a marriage that is voidable or void, and it does not include unmarried partners.

As a result, the matrimonial home protections do not cover unmarried partners. Living together for many years does not change that for the home rules.

What matters instead: ownership and the lease

Ontario does not divide property between common-law couples when they separate. Each partner keeps the property they bought. Furniture, household items and other property belong to the person who bought them.

For the home itself, the key questions are usually practical ones, and a lawyer can confirm how they apply to you.

• Is the home owned, and whose name is on title?
• If you rent, whose name is on the lease, or are you both on it?
• Did you pay toward the purchase, mortgage, repairs or renovations?
• Do you have a written agreement that deals with the home?

If you contributed to your partner's property

A common-law partner who contributed to property the other owns may have a right to part of it. Unless the owner agrees to pay the contribution back, the partner may have to go to court.

Whether you have such a claim depends on the facts, including what you paid or did and when. Keep any bank records, receipts and messages that show your contributions.

Support and children are separate questions

Not having home protections does not mean you have no rights. For support, the Family Law Act includes two unmarried people who have cohabited continuously for not less than three years. It also includes unmarried partners, however long they lived together, if they cohabited in a relationship of some permanence and are the parents of a child as set out in section 4 of the Children's Law Reform Act.

Every spouse covered by that definition must support themselves and the other spouse according to need, to the extent they are able. Every parent must also support their child to the extent they are able, whether or not the parents were ever married.

If you and your partner have a cohabitation agreement, it may address your rights and obligations, including property and support. It cannot deal with decision-making responsibility or parenting time for the children. It is only enforceable if it is in writing, signed by the parties and witnessed.

What to do next

• Do not sign anything about the home or your finances until you have advice.
• Find your lease, title documents, mortgage papers and any cohabitation agreement.
• Collect records of what you paid toward the home or your partner's property.
• Keep records of when you began living together, since the three-year test matters for support.
• If children are involved, note your parenting arrangements and expenses.
• Speak with an Ontario family lawyer promptly about your specific situation.

Frequently asked questions