Difference between revisions of "Dividing Property and Debt in Family Law Matters"

*make decisions about any issue concerning the ownership, possession, or division of property or debt,

*make any order necessary to divide property or debt,  

*declare who should own or possess property,

*make a spouse pay compensation if they have sold or transferred property that should have been shared,

*require the sale of a property and payment to the spouses from the proceeds of the sale,

*make one spouse be responsible for debt,

*require the sale of property to pay debt, and

*make orders transferring property to a spouse.

*the cost (i.e. legal fees) of the court proceeding,

*the cost of another dispute resolution process, like mediation, arbitration, and collaborative settlement processes, and

*the cost of expert's reports, like needs of the child assessments under s. 211, property appraisals, or business valuation.

Under s. 90, the court can make an interim order that one spouse have the exclusive right to live in the family home and use the property (i.e. household contents and furnishings) kept at the family home. The court will make these orders if it's no longer possible for the spouses to share the home and if the convenience to the spouse who's staying in the home outweighs the inconvenience to the spouse who's being made to leave.  Usually, if there are children (especially young children), the spouse who has primary care of the children will be the spouse who remains in the family home because the children require the stability and security of remaining in the family home.

Under s. 95(1) of the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', the court may divide family property or family debt unequally, but only if equal division would be "significantly unfair" in the context of the factors mentioned in s. 95(2). Recent court decisions explain that the unfairness must be "weighty, meaningful or compelling." A  judge can only order an unequal division of family property where the result of equal division would be so unfair as to be unjust or unreasonable. It is highly unlikely that a court would find the circumstances to be "significantly unfair" merely because one spouse worked during the marriage and the other spouse did not. <!-- Note that significant unfairness in this context requires much more than differing financial contributions in a relationship. -->

In some cases, judges find that the ''unequal contribution'' of one person, along with other factors, warrants unequal division. In other cases, ''unequal contribution'' is not enough to establish "significant unfairness."