Canada Legal .com Articles

Video: What is Collaborative Family Law?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

And in the field of Family Law, the concept of collaborative is to be compared to the opposite word which is adversarial. So the legal system is adversarial. Two people come to court with lawyers, one makes one argument, the other makes a contrary argument and you hope that the judge will find the truth somewhere in the middle and make a decision. Whereas in Collaborative Law, you’ve got the two lawyers with the two spouses working together as a team. The lawyers serve more the role of a coach than as an advocate. The idea in collaborative family law is that the clients, the spouses can say what they want, they can speak for themselves. The job of the lawyer in a collaborative family law situation is to give advice, to give some guidance, to coach, but to ultimately keep people focused on the “carrot”, and the “carrot” is a resolution. … (click here for more)

Video: What are the Implications of Sharing Custody?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

From the time that the recent child support guidlines changed, so some time in the late 1990’s, I believe around 1997-98, at that time the law changed so it said that if a person had the children 40% of the time or more they can ask for a reduction of their child support obligation. So what ended up happening with that change in law was a lot of people came out of the woodwork and started demanding more time with the children and they were doing it with a calculator in one hand because they wanted to reach the theshold in order to reduce their child support obligations. And in some cases it was a very appropriate thing to do because the argument was I would rather keep the money in my pocket and use it on the children when they are with me than to give it to the other parent and let them spend it on the children. So there was a lot of cases on the issue of shared custody and … (click here for more)

Video: How Should I Respond to Threats of Legal Action?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

Yours is a situation where you have to have a resolution to your affairs and just because you think, or she threatens to “take you to the cleaners”, that may simply be an idle threat. That might be a threat to cause you to be a bit more generous than what you would otherwise have to be according to the laws of Ontario [Canada]. I think what you need to do is, rather than feed off of the fear, you simply need to become educated. And the best way to do that is to go into a lawyer’s office and let the lawyer know what the facts of your situation are and get an opinion as to what your obligations are. May be, may be the responsibilities that you have to your ex-wife are nowhere nearly as bad as what you think they are going to be.

Video: What is the Purpose of a Separation Agreement?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

… and at the very begining of the agreement, it usually says something like, “this agreement is a full and final settlement of all of your legal affairs.” And then it lists what those issues are, whether it’s the children or property issues, and so forth. So it’s not, unless it’s a temporary agreement, a final agreement is the complete deal. It’s everything from A to Z, it settles everything. And then later on in the agreement you would find a section that says, “And in case either of you get a divorce, the agreement will survive the divorce.” So the divorce does not cancel the agreement, on the contrary, the agreement servives the divorce. In fact, the divorce will be made but the agreement will continue. And that is something you should look in your agreement to see if it actually says that because normally they do. The whole idea behind agreements is to avoid having to go to court so that everything can be resolved in an amicable way, inexpensively and quickly. … (click here for more)

Video: Why Do I need a Marriage Contract?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

If a couple gets together, and on the date of marriage, the husband is worth $10 and the wife was worth $0, and they were together for 20 years. And on the date of separation the husband has gone from being worth $10 to $25. What do we split $25 or $15? The answer is the growth. $15. The husband writes the wife a cheque for $7.50 [($25 - $10) / 2 = $15 / 2 = $7.50] and that is called, in simple language, Equalization of Net Family Property. And that’s how their property rights from the marriage get addressed. So there is property which is what you own and then there is support which is what you earn. So you want to protect two things, you want to protect what you have in the bank, you also want to protect your paycheque. And that’s why do marriage contracts and co-habitation agreements, to protect those two categories. … (click here for more)

Video: When Does Support End?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

You’re asking if support can terminate. And the answer is support can terminate if that’s what the agreement that you negotiated says. … You have something in your hand either called a separation agreement or a court order. Otherwise there wouldn’t be support paid. There has to be something that created your right to collect this amount of money and it would likely say it’s for five years or ten years or twenty five years and it would likely say why and when it terminates. So in some cases these agreements say it terminates at a certain period in time, five, ten, twenty years laters. And in some cases it terminates when you remarry or when you start a full-time job earning a certain income level.

Video: Can I Use My Maiden Name After I Divorce?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

Well, when you divorce you have the right to apply to have your name changed, and in fact you can go back to your maiden name. And, that is something you can take care of through the government office called the Registrar General. And so, you have the right to revert to your maiden name if you wish.

Video: Where Can I Get Free Legal Advice?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

Any court in Ontario [Canada] has in the courthouse, in the Family Court courthouse, a Family Law Information Centre as well as a lawyer paid for by Legal Aid Ontario to be able to give you summary advice. So what you might want to do is, if you are in a situation where you cannot afford a lawyer, you can either go to one of the Family Law Information Centres at the courthouse nearest you, speak to an advice counsel, or possibly even apply for legal aid to grant you a legal aid certificate and have a lawyer be assigned to you through the Legal Aid Plan. … You walk in and they’re open from I think from [9:00 A.M.] to [4:00 P.M.] every day, other than Civic Holidays of course, you sign your name up on the list and the advice lawyer who is assigned to that location on that day goes down the list and calls the next person. … The reason why Legal Aid does install deputy counsellor, advice counsel in the courts is for that very reason, to allow a person to have a lawyer, walk into court with them, and … (click here for more)

Video: How Is Child Support Calculated?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

Child support is based on the non-custodial parent’s income. So your ex-husband’s income determines the amount of child support that he has to pay you. … Child Support Guidelines between British Columbia [Canada] and Ontario [Canada] are very very close because those are the two provinces in Canada that have the highest cost of living. So the amount under the charts, under the tables for the Child Support Guidelines between the two provinces are very close. So it seems to me as so what happened when you came back to Ontario that the Oshawa [Ontario, Canada] court looked at more recent evidence as to what his income was and then looked it up on the chart and ordered him to pay you based on what his most recent income was. And it seems as though it was a lot less than what was proven in the B.C. court. … Well, here’s what I would recommend that you do Gloria, it seems to me as though what happened in your case was that the judge in your case looked at his financial situation and made a determination that he was …

Video: How Do You Know Which Court Location Applied to a Case?

By: Steven Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., Family Lawyer

Jurisdiction: Ontario (Canada)

When it comes to child support, child support really is governed by the jurisdiction of where the child is. So in Mary’s case, for example, she was originally in Barrie [Ontario, Canada] because that’s where the kids were and then Burlingon [Ontario, Canada] where the ex-husband was, and then in Milton where the kids are now. So, first of all, the whole issue of why is Marie all over the map is because the court that services that community is the court that has the power to make a decision. In Mary’s case, it’s interesting because there were two children, there are two children, and so she went from a situation where she was collecting child support from her ex-husband for the two kids to the point where one child is with one parent and the other child is with her. That’s what we call split custody. And then the question becomes who pays who. If there is one child with each parent, some would think logically there shouldn’t be any child support paid. So if the question is … (click here for more)