Cohabitation Agreements Among Older Common Law Couples

Common law relationships are probably the fastest growing style of relationships in Canada. It’s very common for people to live together before marriage or instead of marriage, and now we’re seeing an increase in older common law couples too. These are typically people who have been married, they have had children and maybe their spouse [...]

Misconceptions Of Common Law Relationships

The definition of a common law couple is simply that two people are living together, in a marriage-like relationship. In most cases, it’s pretty easy to identify a common law relationship but there are more difficult situations. For example, it’s possible for a woman to be considered a common law wife even if she has [...]

Do Common Law Spouses Have The Same Rights As Married Spouses If One Partner Dies Without A Will?

No, a common law spouse does not have the same rights if their partner dies without a will. The married wife or husband has an automatic right to receive the first $200,000 of the assets of the deceased, plus a percentage in proportion to the number of children but this is not the case for [...]

Child and Spousal Support With Common Law Separations

Generally, married couples and common law couples that have separated are treated by the courts in the same way when it comes to spousal support. There might be a tendency to go a little bit lower in the amount of support order with the common law relationship than with married couples, but generally the same [...]

Common Law Spouses Should Seek Legal Advice For Separations

Having a lawyer who will help negotiate a separation agreement is good advice, because going to court really is very expensive and slow. Not only that, the results are very difficult to predict and usually your relationship with your former partner will worsen as a result of the court experience. It is certainly advisable to [...]

How Property Is Divided When Common Law Spouses Separate

In a common law relationship, you don’t automatically have a right to share equally in the assets that were accumulated during the relationship. That is one way in which a common law relationship is very different from a marriage. If common law spouses separate, ownership of the property determines who gets what. Your property is [...]