Whether you’re just thinking of separating or divorcing or have already applied, here’s what you need to know about:

• simple divorce in Ontario
• making uncontested divorce (Ontario) applications
• agreeing to joint divorce
• new language around custody or access
• changing court orders already made.

Douglas Mills & Chapman family lawyers in Toronto area and Ottawa file divorce applications in Ontario family court. We can guide you through changes that affect how you apply for and get an uncontested divorce or joint divorce (Ontario).

Ask us if you have questions about new Divorce Act clauses.

Who Divorce Act Changes Apply To

The 2021 changes apply to you if you:

live in Ontario

separate or divorce

ask family court for financial support

want time with your children

require a decision on where your children live.

Revising or applying for new court orders? Language and legislation you’ve become accustomed to may all have changed.   

Supporting an ex-spouse — how long are you liable?

How the Divorce Act 2021 Works

Here’s how the Divorce Act 2021 changes affect you.

• Existing divorce court orders or agreements made before March 1, 2021 stay in place.
• The changes apply to new court orders or agreements made after March 1, 2021.
• Change your court order or divorce agreement after March 1, 2021 and the new divorce law applies.
• You or your children must have a “change in circumstances” to revise a divorce order or agreement after the new law takes effect.

For example, if you are contemplating moving to another province with or without your children, new notice requirements apply. You now have to notify your ex-spouse and request permission for children to relocate, even if you just move across the Greater Toronto Area.

What Matters About Canada’s Divorce Act

Canada’s Divorce Act:

1.    Promotes children’s best interests.

2.    Deals with family violence.

3.    Reduces child poverty.

4.    Makes family law easier to use.

Divorce has no “one-size-fits-all solution”. Your family circumstances are unique and the parenting decisions you and your ex-spouse make will be customized to your situation.

What to do about “deadbeat dads (or moms) who skip out on child support.

In Your Children’s Best Interests

Your children’s feelings are important to you.

The revised Divorce Act requires family judges to think about your children’s physical, emotional and psychological safety and well-being. New or revised applications for parenting time (which replaces access) and decision-making responsibility (the new term for custody) are based on the best interests of the child.

• Who usually cares for your children?
• Is your ex-spouse able to care for your children?
• Will your ex-spouse support your children’s relationship with you?
• Do you co-operate and communicate on parental issues?
• Do you or your ex-spouse involve the children in disputes?
• Is violence a problem?

Protecting your children if your ex drinks.

Your children’s relationships with both of you, their grandparents and other important people in their lives, who can ask for contact time, matter. How much time your children spend with each of you depends on their best interests.

Judges will consider your wishes for their cultural, spiritual or Indigenous heritage and upbringing. If they are old enough, the judge may ask your children about their views and preferences.

New Terms for Access and Custody

Custody orders and access arrangements are passé.

Deciding child responsibility in uncontested divorces.

Day-to-day decision-making responsibilities, like organizing bedtimes and meals, are included in parenting orders. They include your choices for your children’s health, religious or spiritual well-being, education, language instruction and more. 

Decision-making responsibility can be:

Joint

Decisions are made jointly, but your children live with one of you most of the time

Shared

You make decisions together and children live with each of you part of the time

Solo

Only one of you makes decisions and cares for children

Split

If some children prefer to live with one of you and you share decision making.

Douglas Mills & Chapman’s trusted legal partners give you advice on applying for decision-making responsibility. They represent you when you apply to family court to get child support or change spousal support orders.

Moving Your Children Around

Moves you plan to take a new job or because to change residences where you live with your children some or all of the time require that you advise your ex-spouse. Family court judges have new guidelines to decide how your child’s best interests are affected by proposed moves.

How much notice you give is affected by safety issues. Sixty days advance notice is the new standard. If family violence is an issue, your ex-spouse may be able to move with less or no notice at all.

Apply to Ontario family court for parenting time.

Family Violence Defined

Family violence is redefined as violent, threatening or coercive and controlling conduct.

Violence Includes

Causing you or family members, including your children, to be fearful or exposing your children to direct or indirect threats is violent. Threatening to hurt you, your children or other people in your lives physically, sexually or financially, harming pets, damaging property or harassing or forcibly confining you all affect your well-being. Deliberately failing to provide necessaries of life like food or shelter is abusive.

What Judges Consider

Before making parenting arrangements, contact time or child support orders, family court judges:  

• ask if violence is occurring
• review how serious the threats or violence are
• consider how it affects your children
• and check for conflicts with other court actions.

Criminal charges or restraining orders are examples.

What to do if you have a criminal record.

What to Do About Violence

When family violence is affecting your or your children’s well-being, you may be given solo decision-making responsibility or parenting time may be supervised. Douglas Mills & Chapman can refer you to our trusted legal partners for advice on protecting your children from family violence.

Getting Child Support in Ontario

Ottawa wants to reduce child poverty by ensuring child support orders are upheld. 

After March 1, 2021, Canada Revenue Agency can release tax information to Ontario judges or the Family Responsibility Office (FRO) to calculate child support. Getting child support will cost less and deciding or recalculating child support amounts will be faster. Recalculations can be made at any time. If your ex-spouse moves, Ontario courts will vary support orders without going through courts in their new location.

Mediating Family Disputes  

The 2021 Divorce Act encourages you to use divorce mediation, negotiation or arbitration to work out disputes involving your children, including relocations to another province or city. Family court judges expect you to come up with your own solutions as parents, unless that would be unsafe because of threats, abuse or violence. If you can’t reach agreement, a judge may make decisions for you, with or without your agreement.

Child access during COVID (Ontario parents).

Fixing Long Distance Disputes  

Douglas Mills & Chapman’s trusted legal partners can show you ways to resolve disputes without suing. Canada plans to adopt the 1996 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and 2007 Hague Child Support Convention, making it easier if your spouse leaves Canada.

See how Douglas Mills & Chapman’s public notarization (Ontario) services work.

Legal Advice on Divorce Act Changes for Ontario Parents

Call Douglas Mills & Chapman if you plan to separate or divorce or need referrals for complex family issues. Douglas Mills & Chapman virtual family lawyers (Ontario) are available by secure remote video conference 7 days a week, day or evening. 
Use our easy online booking form to make appointments that fit your schedule. Book in person appointments at any of our Douglas Mills & Chapman locations by dialing toll-free to 1-877-402-4277 or in Greater Toronto at 647-479-0118.

The post Divorce Act Changes 2021 appeared first on Douglas Mills & Chapman.

Without power of attorney for property (POA), your loved ones have little recourse but to apply for and obtain a guardian of property order. Your autonomy is at stake when you delay making a POA, with or without a Will.

Douglas Mills & Chapman’s Will and power of attorney lawyers (Ontario) draft legal documents that ensure you’re in charge of decisions about who is appointed to act on your behalf. Only you can make a POA — and you can make it continuing, so your “attorney” represents you even when you are no longer able to provide clear directions about your financial wishes.

When You Have No POA

When you can no longer understand information about your finances or appreciate how decisions or a failure to act affects your assets, a court may find you mentally incapable. If that happens without any planning ahead on your part, you could be subject to a guardian of property order.

Your family may be well meaning, but without either power of attorney or guardianship (Ontario) status, they have no legal authority to act for you in financial decisions. 

Valuable time is lost when family or friends have to ask for an Ontario court’s permission to represent you. (Getting power of attorney for a parent with dementia in Ontario.)

Only the court or the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT) can make or overturn a guardian of property appointment. Who would pay bills like your mortgage, rent or credit card debts until then? 

Why Leave Finances to Chance?

Without a POA, you leave your personal finances to the whims of a court or the OPGT. You suffer a ‘civil death’. Your finances belong to you, but control is just beyond your reach.

Without any input on your part, someone you would not have desired or trusted could be appointed to represent you to your bank, creditors or financial advisors. As long as they can convince a judge they will manage your finances fairly, honestly and without a conflict of interest, anyone could step up on your behalf. 

Single people or family members estranged from parents, siblings or relatives are especially at risk of having the OPGT appointed. Having strangers in charge of your financial affairs may not be what you wanted to happen and that’s why Douglas Mills & Chapman recommends making a POA for property.

If you rely on OAS, CPP or Ontario Disability Support for your only income, ask us about other options you may not have considered, like making family or friends your trustee. 

Substituting Guardianship for a POA

Ensuring your financial safety is the court’s priority.

If your “attorney” is exploiting you or failing to manage your money prudently, a court could rescind your POA and appoint a guardian instead. Having joint attorneys or a substitute attorney in your POA can avoid these unforeseen outcomes. Allowing joint attorneys to act individually or having an alternate attorney ensures you have options if questions arise about how your finances are being managed.

When you are no longer in charge of your finances, you hope whoever represents you does a capable job. You saved hard to get where you are and you want your money to go as far as possible and be used prudently, in a way that ensures you have a good life. 

Court-appointed guardians are competent, but they lack the personal caring and compassion family, friends or trusted, long-term advisors can bring to your property interests. Think what it would be like to have every aspect of your financial life, except your Will, managed by someone you do not know:

• bank accounts
• pensions, RRSPs and RRIFs
• insurance benefits 
• investments or income properties
• debts you owe
• personal belongings
• your home or vehicles
• your safety deposit box.

Why You Need a Lawyer

Douglas Mills & Chapman’s lawyers for Wills can make a proactive power of attorney for property when they draft your Will. We have power of attorney lawyers near you in Greater Toronto Area or Ottawa for in person legal services. Remote video conference calls can be arranged anywhere in Ontario, day or evening, at your convenience.

Our POA professionals can refer you to trusted legal partners for advice if your application is being disputed in court or you are challenging a family members’ authority to take over someone’s affairs using a guardian of property order.

Making a guardianship application in Ontario is a serious step. You may find having the OPGT handle your family members’ finances is costing more than you expected or that you disagree with their decisions. Our legal partners are guardianship lawyers and can assist you to apply for statutory guardianship to act on your family members’ behalf instead.

Older or vulnerable adults can be exploited by financial predators or loved ones they trusted to manage day-to-day property decisions. Family lawyers we refer you to can advise what to do if you are worried someone you know is being unduly influenced or coerced. 

Save When You Draft a Will and POA

Douglas Mills & Chapman has Will and power of attorney lawyers near you. We prepare continuing powers of attorney for property and personal care at the same time as we draft your virtual personal Will. (See how virtual notary services work.) You pay just $249.99 and up plus HST for virtual legal services or $299.99 plus HST to meet in person. 

Make a POA for property without a Will for only $69.99 or get both a continuing POA for property and personal care for $99.99. Our Wills and estates lawyers can draft your personal Will later, whenever you desire, for the low flat fee of $199.99 plus HST or $149.99 each plus HST for couples who make their Wills together. 

Easy Online Bookings 7 Days a Week

Access law services day or evening, 7 days a week, with our remote, virtual legal services anywhere in Ontario. We can meet you in person at any Greater Toronto Area or Ottawa Douglas Mills & Chapman location. Parking is available onsite and transit services are nearby. 
Use our online booking form to make your appointment — it’s quick and easy. Or call toll ahead, free to 1-877-402-4277 or our 1-647-479-0118 lawyer line in Greater Toronto Area, for times that work for you.

The post Avoiding Guardianship appeared first on Douglas Mills & Chapman.

High Cost of Divorce in Ontario

Many Canadian marriages — 41% on average — end in the first 13 years.

How much does a divorce cost in Ontario? You could spend $10,000 or more securing a simple or uncontested divorce through a traditional divorce lawyer and up to $50,000 if you go to Ontario divorce court. Most Ontario family lawyers charge $250 an hour or more — and you can pay substantial miscellaneous costs, right down to every email, phone call or photocopy your lawyer makes, on top of that.

If you have been living separate and apart emotionally for at least a year, even while occupying a jointly owned matrimonial home, Douglas Mills & Chapman can arrange an uncontested divorce for far less than you would ordinarily pay. Our flat fee lawyers take the pain out of separating for good.

Why Get an Uncontested Divorce?

Uncontested divorces make it easier to go on with your life. Your file for divorce and your spouse agrees not to dispute your application in court. You’ve figured out who gets the matrimonial home and decision-making responsibility for the kids.

No feuding or costly emotional and financial court appearances — just a straightforward (well, as much as divorce can be) court filing signalling that your relationship is permanently ending.

If divorcing is your spouse’s idea and you have been presented with an uncontested or joint divorce application you are uncertain what to do with, ask our licensed divorce attorneys for advice. 

We review draft legal papers your spouse or their lawyer may ask you to sign to give our independent legal advice on options for signing, contesting a divorce or requesting spousal or child support. 

Do You Have an International Divorce?

Before you file for divorce in Ontario court, ask yourself are you free to divorce? Couples married in other countries may need to take extra steps to prove their marriage is valid or get a foreign divorce recognized in Canada.

Getting Your Foreign Marriage Recognized

Foreign marriages are generally legal in Ontario if you were eligible to marry under Canadian law. Regardless of religious beliefs, you must have been at least 18 — or 16 to 17 if your parents consent — when you married and willingly agreed to and understood you were being married, not have been related by blood or adoption or consented to polygamy.

Foreign Divorces in Canadian Law

International divorces are legal in Canada if you or your spouse have a real and substantial connection to the country where the divorce occurred. For example, if you were born abroad, lived together in a foreign country or your spouse ordinarily  lived there for at least a year before divorcing. 

Are Religious Divorces Legal?

Muslim religious divorces are not recognized under Canada’s Divorce Act but Jewish gets or ghets can be introduced in court.

Douglas Mills & Chapman reviews marriage certificates and foreign divorce papers to confirm your eligibility to apply for a divorce in Canada and apply for spousal support. 

Spousal or Child Support Obligations

Consider this: alimony in Ontario and child support payments can consume most of your or your spouse’s annual income after basic living expenses are paid. 

Asking for Temporary Support 

As a family caregiver, you may have given up your career or other interests to look after children or elderly family members. Now that you’re divorcing, you may need to go back to school or rely on your spouse for financial support until your children are adults or complete their schooling and can support themselves. You may have grounds for not paying divorce costs if you are low-income or a stay-at-home parent.

Arranging Child Support

Child support laws in Ontario require divorced couples to provide financially for minor children, based on their incomes and assets. Adopted children or stepchildren you care for as your own are your legal and financial responsibility. Spousal support or child support payments the court orders or parents agree to voluntarily are an ongoing obligation, even if you live outside Ontario. 

What if My Child Has Disabilities?

Child support can continue until your child reaches adulthood at 18 or completes their first college, university or other training and is considered independent. That means you could be paying court-ordered child support up to age 22 or beyond. If any of your children are physically or mentally disabled to the point of being financially dependent adults, your support obligations may go on as long as they need assistance.

Getting Independent Legal Advice

Douglas Mills & Chapman has affordable family lawyers, Toronto and area, who can give independent legal advice on divorce and its financial implications. 

A parenting plans lawyer (Toronto, nearby areas or online) can advise you on requesting decision-making responsibility and parenting time with all your children that divorce courts look for. We can explain how much financial support you can expect to pay, while keeping the divorce process cost more affordable. 

Our independent legal advice certificate shows the court you understand the consequences of your decisions. You pay just $349.99 to talk in confidence with an experienced family attorney. That keeps the cost of a divorce application affordable for almost anyone.

Changing Your Will and Divorce

Marriage can be a lifetime obligation and beyond. It doesn’t have to be. A final divorce decree revokes those parts of personal Wills that leave inheritances or gifts to former spouses. You must still cancel direct beneficiary designations, such as life insurance policies left to a marital partner, because if you forget, they inherit.

Before you make any Wills decisions, remember Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act requires your estate trustee, executor or personal representative to arrange ongoing, court-ordered support payments during a divorced spouse’s lifetime. Other gifts in your Will are extinguished when you divorce, but court-ordered support continues until your spouse is financially independent or as otherwise stated in your divorce order.

Talk to our family lawyers or Wills and estate attorneys if you have questions about family law and Ontario succession rights. 

Why You Need a Lawyer

Filing for divorce is a major step and winding your way through the Divorce Act changes (2021), court applications, rules and regulations is time consuming. It can be confusing. Douglas Mills & Chapman’s licensed family attorneys have helped thousands of Ontarians to file for uncontested divorces and ask the court for spousal support or parenting time.

If your case is more complex or involves abuse or family violence, we refer you to trusted legal associates who can advise you on every aspect of contesting your divorce. Call for an appointment and let’s get started on planning your divorce application.

Documents We Need

Bring valid Ontario photo ID to your video conference call or in person meeting with your Douglas Mills & Chapman lawyer. Letters, emails, draft or informal separation agreements, parenting plans and your monthly financial budget and income statements help us to understand your situation better.    

Book Online 7 Days a Week, Day or Evening

Douglas Mills & Chapman has open law offices nearby in Greater Toronto Area for day or evening appointments, 7 days a week. You can park onsite or take the bus. Our easy online booking form lets you choose times and dates that work for your schedule. Drop by our offices if that is more convenient or call our 1-647-479-0118 lawyer line to make your appointment with an Douglas Mills & Chapman attorney.

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No Will Creates Legal Limbo

Most parents want to be there for their kids. Dying “intestate” (without a personal will) plunges your family into crisis and leaves your kids in legal limbo, maybe for months.

No Time to React

Accidents happen so quickly. A whiteout and blowing snow at Bowmanville Jan. 7, 2017 caused over 100 vehicle collisions on the 401, but only minor injuries. It was hardly the worst day on the GTA’s most traveled highway. Unlike Sept. 3, 1999, when Windsor-Essex was the scene of an 87-vehicle pileup during morning rush hour. 

The Day the Fog Rolled In

The jack-knifing started when a tractor trailer hesitated in a sudden dense fog that rolled in from Detroit. With less than a metre visibility, vehicles on both sides of the grassy median took a header. A fireball from a fuel tanker fused several vehicles together, an OPP officer who dodged shrapnel from the explosions recalled. The flames consumed 14 cars and five semis. 

Highway 401 Called Carnage Alley

The kilometre-long path of destruction killed eight and injured 45. The site was just 16 kilometres from “Carnage Alley”, between Windsor and London, where 13 died the previous year. Sixty were injured on the Windsor stretch of the 401 in the six months before Sept. 3. Post-accident investigations led to 25 recommendations from a provincial coroner — and years of upgrades.  

Fire, Accident or Pandemic Seem Unimaginable

No one thinks they will die unexpectedly or that their minor children will be left alone. Unfortunately, a serious accident, fire or domestic dispute can rob your children of your love and guidance just when they need it most. COVID-19 has devastated families in a way that seems almost unreal.

Crisis Proofing Your Family

You bought joint life insurance, ensured the mortgage would be paid if you died and named beneficiaries for your investments. Making a personal will and appointing guardians for your children is just logical. Yet many couples delay writing a will because of the cost or time involved. 

Small Cost for Your Children’s Security

When you think about how much you pay in interest for your mortgage or to buy a car, your final will and testament is a small investment. Douglas Mills & Chapman charges just $199.99 and up to draft a personal will. Here’s the best part: if you plan well ahead, your kids will be secure knowing you took good care of them.

What Happens When You Don’t Plan Ahead

Think of it this way. Although you hope and imagine your parents or siblings would immediately step in to care for your children in a crisis, your trust may be misplaced. While they may be there to support your kids through the immediate aftermath, legally the Province of Ontario is responsible for your children’s care. 

Would You Want Strangers to Care For Your Children?

If both you and your spouse die without a will or appointing guardians, weeks or months could go by before an Ontario court decides who is best suited to care for your children. Your kids could be put in foster care through the local Children Aid’s Society while the court screens possible guardians.

Writing a Guardianship Clause

A guardianship clause in your personal will appoints family members or trusted friends to care for your kids after your death. Unless your guardians’ appointments are contested, your final wishes will usually be respected by the court. The clause can be added to an existing will or included when you write a new will. 

Who Will Manage Your Money?

Ontario law also requires you to make financial plans to support minor children after your death. Creating a trust and appointing trustees to manage your money is the easiest way to ensure your children’s needs are met. Interest from investments in the trust can be used to fund food, clothing, shelter, school and extracurricular expenses. Anything left over can be distributed to your kids after they reach adulthood.

Picking Guardians and Trustees

While your children’s guardians can also manage their trust, splitting up these responsibilities acts as a second set of eyes on their care. Not everyone wants the responsibility of raising someone else’s children or managing their money. Give serious thought to appointing alternates, just in case your first choice is unavailable or unwilling after all. Choosing someone who shares your moral values and religious beliefs and is kind to your children could give you lasting peace of mind.

An Inheritance to Last

Schools, friends and hobbies are a big part of children’s lives. Think carefully about how you can arrange your kids’ care to be least disruptive for them. A relative who lives several provinces away may be the obvious choice, but is moving that far away really what’s best for them? You want your children to thrive and be successful after you’re gone. Planning wisely for a day when you may not be around is the best inheritance you can give them.

Legal Advice on Amending Your Personal Will

Douglas Mills & Chapman Ontario wills and estate lawyers advise you on including guardians and trustees in your will. Video conference with a licensed Ontario lawyer 7 days a week, day or evening, at your convenience. Call toll-free to 1-877-522-9377 or in Greater Toronto at 647-479-0118 or use our online booking form to make an appointment. In person meetings are available at our Ottawa, Toronto, Scarborough, Vaughan, Etobicoke, Mississauga Winston Churchill or Mississauga Heartland law offices.

Click here to learn more about Douglas Mills & Chapman’s wills and estates services.

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Triplets Torn Apart at Birth

The 2018 Sundance Film Festival winner is a stunner. Three 19-year-old, curly-haired triplets, Bobby Shafran, Eddy Galland and David Kellman, discover each other through friends and media. Shafran meets Galland at a New York State community college when friends realize they are a mirror image. Queens College student Kellman, the missing third, reads about the twins’ reunion in media.

Instant Media Stars

The young mens’ miraculous reunion makes them media stars. They open Triplets Roumanian Steakhouse in the Soho, marry and meet other others’ foster parents. The story takes a darker turn when Galland commits suicide in 1995 and Shafran is revealed to be on probation for a bungled robbery-murder. Their teenage birth mother brushes them off. 

N.Y. Medical Community Knew

What is most amazing about their story is that medical researchers deliberately separated the six-month-old infants for a psychological experiment. The Manhattan-based Louise Wise Services adoption agency that arranged their foster care knew about the study, funded by the Jewish Board of Guardians and coordinated by psychiatrists Peter B. Neubauer and Viola W. Bernard. Placing triplets together was too difficult, the agency pleaded. The truth came out later.

Foster Parents Had No Idea They Were Triplets

The confused foster parents, who received regular visits to check on the boys’ development for over 10 years, had no idea they were brothers. The three had been separated and placed with three very different families (blue collar, middle class and upper middle class) to answer an age-old question. Was emotional development the result of nature or nuture? By Neubauer’s request, the study’s findings will only be released by Yale University in 2065.

Matching Kids to Kin 

It’s easy to be critical, but until recently Canada split up families into separate foster homes. Nowadays, Ontario’s Children’s Aid Societies (CASs) reunite children with birth families, relatives, godparents, step-parents or others who care about them. Foster care by strangers is usually temporary while parents work out their problems.

Safety, Security and Support Come First

Making lifelong connections can mean finding an extended family member, friend or even teacher who knows the child and cares about their future. About 26% of Ontario kids in official care live with kinship families. Besides the three S’s (safety, security and support), kinship care keeps kids connected to their heritage, culture and traditions. 

Kinship Services vs Care

Not all children need to be in official CAS care. When kin can care for a child without going through the courts, a kinship service agreement can work. Kinship service families are screened for children’s safety  and receive financial support from the Ontario government, but children remain out of care. Kinship care families, in comparison, participate in a formal home study and training. They receive the same CAS funding and support as licensed foster parents.

Getting Approved for Kinship Care

Kinship care families complete a SAFE (Structured Analysis, Family Evaluation) home study to check that they can provide a safe, secure home. Medical reports, police and child welfare clearances and references are required during the four- to six-month review. A nine-month Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education (PRIDE) Training program is mandatory.

Taking PRIDE

During the free PRIDE course, you learn about:

• how adoption and child welfare law and services work
• how children deal with attachment and loss
• child development and adopted children
• what neglect, lack of stimulation, abuse and institutionalization do to children
• how children form their identity
• why cultural and racial awareness are important
• and why children need connections and continuity.

Paid sessions are available if you can’t make the free training.

Deciding on Kinship Care

It’s worrying for extended families and friends to know vulnerable children may not have the care they need. Yet children cared for by kin have fewer mental health problems, better emotional health and move around far less. When it’s a choice between foster care by strangers and customary or kinship care, the best interests of the child come first.     

Get Legal Guardianship Over a Child with Kinship Agreement

Douglas Mills & Chapman Ontario family lawyers go over how kinship agreements work with you. Day or evening appointments are available by online video conference 7 days a week. Call toll-free to 1-877-522-9377 or in Greater Toronto at 647-479-0118 or use our online booking form to make an appointment. In person meetings with licensed Ontario lawyers are available at our Ottawa, Toronto, Scarborough, Vaughan, Etobicoke, Mississauga Winston Churchill or Mississauga Heartland law offices.

Click here to learn more about Douglas Mills & Chapman’s family law services.

The post Care for Your Kin When Their Parents Can’t appeared first on Douglas Mills & Chapman.

Your Rights to Inherit in Ontario

What rights, you say? It’s true you may not have any. Your parents have a responsibility to minor children 18 or under. They can be called upon to financially support you through college or university (one-time only). Just don’t expect to attend part-time or live it up at a frat house while you dabble or dawdle. Family support has its limits.

Married Too Young

For instance, Ontario’s Family Law Act doesn’t require parents to support a married minor under 18. That’s right. Even if your next door neighbour’s son and you have been in love since you were five (he’s to die for), as long as you marry him before you’re 18, your parents can disown you. They could just argue you are financially independent.  

An Exception to the Rule

You do have recourse if you have an ongoing physical or mental disability. Provided you can’t find a way to support yourself due to a disability, your parents’ legal and financial obligations can continue for life. Leaving you out of their will could be overturned in court by filing a claim for “dependent’s relief” under the Succession Law Reform Act.

Common-law Support for Adults with Disabilities

In fact, the right to adult support has improved since 2017. Thanks to a court challenge by Brampton mother Robyn Coates, even common-law parents can now be required to support  you when you have an illness, disability or other reason to be financially dependent.

Fairer Family Law for Ontario Couples

Coates won her case after arguing the law was discriminatory because it burdened common-law parents. Coates’ son Joshua, 22 at the time, has Di George Syndrome requiring 24/7 care. His father supported him financially for five years, then sought a court order to stop the payments. She argued it was unfair that divorced couples had to provide child support, while common-law spouses didn’t. The court agreed and the rest is history.

No Say Over a Will

With those limited exceptions, your parent’s will is theirs to decide. You or anyone else have absolutely no sway over how they divide it. But you say, can’t I sue my parents in court to get my rightful inheritance? You could try. 

Courts Rule ‘No Moral Grounds’ for Legal Action

Since lawsuits are costly, a 2014 Ontario Court of Appeal case called Verch might discourage you from going any further. The Verch decision ruled adult children have no “moral grounds” to make a legal claim when they are left out of a will.  

Leaving Your Children Out Altogether

Albert Verch left his entire estate to his former daughter-in-law. Her ex-husband sued, claiming their father had a moral obligation to make a just and equitable will. In other words, to give his estate to his children. The court dismissed the claim. Despite arguing their father was mentally incompetent and unduly influenced, his adult, independent children could not prove he owed them anything.

Breaking a Promise to Include You in a Will

Yes but…You might make a case if your parents promised they would remember you in their will provided you helped them in some way (quantum meruit lawsuit). A 1991 Ontario case (Tarantino v Galvano) awarded a daughter compensation for personal care she gave her elderly mother before she died. That case drew a line between moral duty and a contract. The daughter testified they had reached a bargain: she would provide care in exchange for inheriting her mother’s house and being paid for her services. When that didn’t happen, she sued the estate and won.

Promises Cause Financial Grief 

Finally, you could also complain to the court if you made financial decisions thinking you would inherit and those backfired (proprietary estoppel lawsuit). You may have a case if you can show you were reassured by a parent that you had a right to something — for example, land you thought you were inheriting — and you based a decision on that promise, such as building a house on it at your own expense. If your parent then seized the house, saying you didn’t own the land and it belonged to them, you can ask the court to intervene to compensate you for their unfair actions.

Good Luck With That 

Suing your parents or their estate is never easy. Guilt aside, you may have a hard time convincing a court you have a claim. Mind you, it’s never stopped an irate son or daughter before.

Legal Advice for Suing an Ontario Estate

Before you sue, get legal advice from Douglas Mills & Chapman’s Ontario wills and estate lawyers. Book an appointment by calling toll free to 1-877-552-9377 or 647-479-0118 in Toronto or use our online booking form. Our licensed lawyers video conference with you anywhere in Ontario, 7 days a week, day or evening. In person appointments can be arranged at our Ottawa, Toronto, Scarborough, Etobicoke, Vaughan, Mississauga Winston Churchill or Mississauga Heartland law offices. 

Click here to learn more about Douglas Mills & Chapman’s wills and estate services.

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