Settling a Private School Bill After a Common-Law Split

The situation

Gabriela and Kostas lived together for eleven years without marrying before they separated. They had one son, Alejandro, who was in grade six at a private school in the Hamilton area when the relationship ended. Gabriela had sold her share of a business a few years earlier and lived mostly on investment income; Kostas worked as a technology executive with a base salary plus bonus that varied year to year but generally landed well into six figures. Between them, their combined family property was in the low millions once the shared home, investments and Kostas's stock compensation were accounted for.

Alejandro had attended the private school since junior kindergarten. Both parents had agreed to it originally, and while they were together, tuition simply came out of household funds without much discussion of whose money paid for what. Once they separated, that arrangement stopped being automatic. Gabriela stayed in the family home with Alejandro under a shared parenting schedule, and Kostas moved to a condo nearby. Basic child support was worked out fairly quickly using the standard guideline tables. The tuition was a separate, harder conversation.

The problem

Under Ontario's child support framework, basic monthly support covers everyday costs like food, clothing and housing. On top of that, parents can be asked to share specific extra costs — often called special or extraordinary expenses — that go beyond the ordinary budget. Private school tuition can qualify as one of these expenses when it is reasonable given the family's means and the child's needs, and when both parents had, in some sense, bought into that level of schooling for their child. The usual starting point for splitting these costs is each parent's share of their combined income, though a court or a negotiated agreement can depart from strict proportionality where fairness calls for it.

Because Gabriela and Kostas had never married, the Divorce Act's support rules did not apply to them; instead, their support obligations were governed by the Family Law Act and its accompanying child support guidelines, which use much the same income-sharing approach for extraordinary expenses. That legal similarity did not make the practical dispute any easier. Kostas's income, largely salary, was straightforward to document. Gabriela's income was investment-based and lower on paper, even though she held significant assets. A strict proportional split based on income alone would have put most of the tuition burden on Kostas — a result he felt was unfair given that Gabriela held the more valuable share of their joint property after the separation was sorted out. Gabriela, for her part, argued that continuity mattered for Alejandro during an already disruptive year, and that the school had been a joint decision neither parent should now walk away from unilaterally.

Tuition, fees and a mandatory laptop program at the school came to roughly $28,000 a year. Neither parent disputed that the school was good for Alejandro. The dispute was entirely about the split, and about what would happen if either parent's financial picture changed.

There was also a timing pressure neither parent could ignore. The school's re-enrolment deadline for the following year fell only a few months after separation, with a non-refundable deposit due well before the parents had otherwise expected to sort out their finances. Gabriela did not want Alejandro pulled out mid-year over a cost dispute that had nothing to do with whether the school was working for him, and Kostas, whatever his objections to the split, agreed on that much. That shared starting point — keep Alejandro where he was, argue about the numbers separately — ended up shaping how the whole negotiation was framed from the first meeting.

What we did

1. Gathered a full income picture, not just a pay stub. Our team worked with Gabriela to document her actual income from investments and any occasional consulting work, distinguishing it from the value of her underlying assets. Extraordinary expense sharing is based on income, not net worth, so this distinction mattered a great deal to the outcome — even a wealthy parent with modest reported income can end up with a smaller share of a specific expense like tuition.
2. Confirmed the expense actually qualified. We reviewed the school's cost structure and Alejandro's history there to support the position that this was a genuine extraordinary expense rather than an ordinary cost either parent could simply absorb, and that both parents had consistently supported the choice of school before separating.
3. Modelled several sharing formulas. Rather than anchoring only on strict income proportionality, we prepared comparisons showing what the annual tuition split would look like under a pure income-share formula, a formula adjusted for asset division, and a flat percentage split, so Gabriela could see the real dollar difference between positions before any negotiation began.
4. Proposed a phased, reviewable arrangement. Instead of asking the other side to accept one fixed number indefinitely, we suggested a starting split with a built-in annual review tied to updated income disclosure, which gave both parents room to adjust as Kostas's bonus income or Gabriela's investment returns changed from year to year.
5. Negotiated directly with Kostas's counsel rather than starting in court. Given that both parents agreed the school itself was worthwhile, litigation risked spending money that could otherwise go toward tuition. We proposed exchanging financial disclosure informally first, with the goal of a signed agreement rather than a motion.
6. Documented the agreement properly. Once terms were reached, we prepared a written agreement setting out the tuition split, the review mechanism, and how the laptop program and any incidental school fees would be treated, so both parents had a clear, enforceable reference for future years.

The outcome

The two sides did not end up at either parent's opening position. Kostas had initially proposed a strict income-based split that would have left him paying close to 70 percent of the tuition; Gabriela had initially asked for an even split regardless of income, pointing to her share of the property. The negotiated result landed in between: Kostas agreed to pay roughly 60 percent of the annual tuition and mandatory fees, with Gabriela covering the remaining 40 percent, reviewed each year against updated income figures rather than fixed permanently. The laptop program cost, a smaller extraordinary expense in its own right, was split evenly given that it benefited Alejandro regardless of either parent's income.

Neither parent got exactly what they wanted. Kostas paid more than a strict asset-adjusted formula might have produced, and Gabriela accepted more responsibility than her investment income alone would have suggested under a pure guideline calculation. Both, however, avoided a contested motion over a single school bill, kept the decision out of a courtroom, and preserved a working relationship they would need for years of co-parenting decisions still ahead. The annual review clause meant neither parent was locked into a formula that might stop reflecting reality if Kostas's bonus dropped in a slow year or Gabriela's investment income shifted.

Alejandro stayed at the school without interruption. The agreement was reached within a few months of the first conversation about tuition, well ahead of the next school year's payment deadline, which mattered because private schools typically require a decision and a deposit long before September.

The written agreement also addressed a question neither parent had raised at the outset but that came up naturally once the sharing formula was settled: what would happen if Alejandro later wanted to change schools, or if the private school itself increased fees well beyond ordinary inflation. Rather than leaving that to guesswork, the agreement specified that any material change in the school's cost, or a decision to move Alejandro elsewhere, would trigger the same annual review process used for ordinary income changes, so a future disagreement over a different number would not mean starting the whole negotiation from scratch. For Gabriela and Kostas, the value of the file was as much about building a process that could absorb future change as it was about the percentage split itself.

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