Barrie Hayes, Partner, Family Law.
Let’s face it, short of dying, a family separation can be one of life’s most emotionally challenging experiences. Fear, anger, and frustration are common reactions in difficult separations. To get them through this difficult period clients look to their family lawyer. as their champion and trusted advisor.
I’ve sometimes…
Barrie Hayes, Partner, Family Law
There is a marked difference in the legal approach to quantifying support claims when a support payor is living as opposed to after a support payor has died.
In situations where the support payor is living the Divorce Act determines child and spousal support for married support payors and…
Barrie Hayes, Partner, Family Law.
The admissibility of audio or video tape recordings are, like any other potential evidence , to be ruled on by a judge. In determining the admissibility of any evidence a judge will consider the basic evidentiary concepts such as; Is the evidence relevant or material to the issues being…
Barrie Hayes, Partner
In many marriages the matrimonial home is the most significant family asset owned by the spouses. The Family Law Act (“FLA”), in dealing with equalization of net family property on separation, provides special treatment of the matrimonial home.
Whereas generally a spouse may deduct from his or her net family property…
Barrie Hayes, Partner
In my previous blog I described the formulaic calculation used by the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (“ SSAG”) to determine spousal support in circumstances where the parties had no children.
In this article I will focus on the SSAG formulaic calculation to determine spousal support in circumstances where the parties have…
Barrie Hayes, Partner
The differing approaches to the calculation of spousal support under the spousal support advisory guidelines.
The spousal support advisory guidelines contain formulaic calculations to assist in the calculation of both quantum (amount) and duration of spousal support.
The guidelines contain markedly different formulaic calculations when addressing spousal support calculation where there…
Barrie M. Hayes, Partner
There is a legal anomaly to the extent that there is, while a family unit is intact, no obligation at law for parents to support their adult children. Following separation, however, a legal obligation is triggered imposing support for adult children under provincial and federal legislation.
Most support legislation does…
A recent Court of Appeal decision has caused considerable concern in relation to the certainty of the statutory provisions being applied to determine net family property equalization between legal married spouses.
Sections 4 and 5 of the Family Law Act have, to date, been viewed as all encompassing statutory direction in the division of net…
Although Ontario common law spouses have a statutory right to receive spousal support upon separation, there is no statutory recognition of common law spouses in claims for property. The Family Law Act, in dealing with equalization of net family property, limits spouses to legal married spouses only.
Courts in Ontario, however, have historically granted…
30 years ago, on a blustery spring day in Ottawa, then Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth executed a document proclaiming the patriation of the Constitution and the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The patriation of the Constitution, as Trudeau said in his remarks that day, marked the arrival…
