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Parents (view source)

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#ask for orders for the protection of people.
#ask for orders for the protection of people.


The federal ''[[Divorce Act]]'' only applies to people who are or were married to each other; it doesn't apply to people in unmarried relationships, including parents who aren't married to each other.
Parents who don't qualify as "spouses" under section 3 of the ''Family Law Act'' — see the first section in this chapter for more information about who qualifies as a spouse under the act — ''cannot'' use the act to ask for orders about:


===Orders available to unmarried couples===
#the payment of spousal support;
#the division of property and debt; or,
#orders for the protection of property.


Under the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', couples who neither married nor lived together have certain rights and obligations toward one another if they have a child. One or both of them will also be entitled to certain government benefits as a result of being parents, but those rights don't come from the ''Family Law Act'', they come from programs like the provincial BC Early Childhood Tax Benefit (to be replaced by the BC Child Opportunity Benefit in 2020) and the federal ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7wmq Income Tax Act]''.
The federal ''[[Divorce Act]]'' only applies to people who are or were married to each other; it doesn't apply to people in unmarried relationships, including parents who aren't married to each other.
 
====Children and child support====


There is no minimum length-of-relationship requirement for any claim under the ''Family Law Act'' involving children. A parent is a parent, regardless of the sort of relationship that produced the child.
===Relationships between people who aren't parents or spouses===


A parent may apply for all of the orders available under the ''Family Law Act'' that concern children, from child support to guardianship to the various restraining orders that are available to protect a child from harm. Issues about children are discussed in a little more detail further on in this section.
Family law doesn't have much at all to do with people who are dating and don't have a child. They're not "spouses" under the ''Family Law Act'', they're not "parents," and since they don't have a child, they're not "guardians." The ''Family Law Act'' just doesn't apply to them because of the nature of their relationship.


====Property====
There are only a few ways the law can affect people in relationships like this. If there is violence or non-consensual sexual activity, the parts of the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7vf2 Criminal Code]'' that talk about things like assault, battery, sexual assault, rape, stalking, unlawful confinement, and abduction might apply, and those are issues that the police deal with. If they sign a lease together, buy something together or take out a loan together, then the law of contract or the law of property might be used to figure out who's entitled to which assets and responsible for which obligations. If they buy property together, the provincial ''[http://canlii.ca/t/848q Partition of Property Act]'' will let them ask the court to sell the property and divvy up the proceeds. I suppose that if they split up and start bad-mouthing each other on social media, then tort law and the law about defamation might also be relevant.


In a short relationship, each person will generally be entitled to keep whatever they brought into the relationship and anything they received as a gift from the other person. If there are any jointly owned assets ― property that both people own and that are registered in both names ― like a house or a car, there is a legal presumption that each owner is entitled to an equal interest in the asset, whether the couple contributed equally to its purchase or not.  
Unless there is something like this going on, when people who are dating each other split up, that's it, their relationship is over without any legal entitlements at all.


Although unmarried couples who lived together for less than two years, or didn't live together at all, aren't able to make any claims about property owned only by one of them under the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', they may be able to make a claim under certain common law principles. These are discussed in more detail in the first section of the [[Property & Debt in Family Law Matters|Property & Debt]] chapter, under the heading "Property claims and people who aren't spouses".
===Relationships between people who are parents but aren't spouses===


===Orders not available to unmarried couples===
Family law does talk — and it talks a lot — about people who are parents. While parents who aren't spouses can have all the same legal issues as people who are dating, under the criminal law, the law of contract, the law of property, and tort law, their concerns will mostly revolve around parenting and supporting their child. While they might also be concerned about tax benefits and credits relating to their child, like the equivalent-to-spouse credit under the federal ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7wmq Income Tax Act]'', the Canada Child Benefit and the BC Child Opportunity Benefit, what we're really talking about is parenting and child support.


A couple who have a child but did not live together, or who lived together for less than two years and did not have a child, cannot ask for orders under the ''[[Family Law Act]]'' about:
====Children and child support====
 
*spousal support,
*child support for the benefit of stepchildren, or
*the division of family property and family debt.
 
Only people who qualify as married or unmarried spouses may ask for orders on these subjects.
 
====Spousal support====
 
Section 3 of the ''Family Law Act'' defines a ''spouse'' for the purpose of claims for spousal support as someone who is married, has lived in a marriage-like relationship with someone else for at least two years, or for less than two years if the couple has had a child together. Since only spouses are eligible for spousal support, people who do not meet these criteria cannot apply for spousal support.
 
====Child support for stepchildren====
 
Stepparents can be required to pay child support for the benefit of their stepchildren. However, section 146 of the ''Family Law Act'' defines a ''stepparent'' as someone who is "a spouse of the child's parent."  As a result, someone in an unmarried relationship that doesn't qualify as a spousal relationship cannot be made to pay child support for the other person's children from a previous relationship.


====Family property and family debt====
==Who is a "child"==


The ''Family Law Act'' defines a ''spouse'' for the purposes of claims about property and debt as someone who is married or has lived in a marriage-like relationship with someone else for at least two years. Only people who meet this narrower definition of spouse may ask for orders about the division of property and debt under the act.
sd


===Agreements available to unmarried couples===
===Agreements available to unmarried couples===
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