The most expensive assumption in Ontario family law is that living together long enough gives you the same rights as marriage. It does not, and the gap is largest exactly where people assume it is smallest — property.
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Common-law partners in Ontario can have support obligations to each other. What they do not have is the automatic property right that married spouses get: the equalization of net family property under the Family Law Act.
That means a partner who is not on title to the home may have no statutory claim to its value on separation, regardless of how long the relationship lasted or what they contributed. Claims can still be advanced — through unjust enrichment or a constructive trust — but those are litigated arguments, not an automatic entitlement.
The matrimonial home provisions of the Family Law Act likewise apply to married spouses. A common-law partner does not get the same statutory protections in respect of the home.
A cohabitation agreement is a domestic contract under the Family Law Act. It can set out who owns what, what happens to jointly acquired property, how the home is treated, whether support will be paid, and how contributions to a property one partner owns will be recognised.
It can also address the thing most couples never discuss: what happens if one partner stops working, or reduces their hours, to care for children or to support the other's career.
A cohabitation agreement can be drafted so that it continues to apply if the couple marries, becoming a marriage contract. That is a drafting decision worth making deliberately rather than discovering afterwards.
Marriage also changes estate consequences. Since 1 January 2022 marriage no longer revokes an existing will in Ontario, but a new spouse acquires rights against an estate regardless of what the will says.
Different statutes use different thresholds for different purposes, so there is no single answer that applies to everything. What is consistent is that no amount of time creates the property equalization right that married spouses have.
Not automatically. A claim may exist through unjust enrichment or a constructive trust, but that is something you have to establish rather than something you simply have.
Yes, and it commonly does — including whether support is payable and on what basis.
It can, if it is drafted to continue as a marriage contract. Say so at the outset rather than assuming.
Independent legal advice for each partner is what makes a domestic contract durable, and its absence is a standard ground of attack.
Government sources for this topic. Rules change — confirm the current position before you rely on it.
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