Difference between revisions of "Introduction to Family Law in British Columbia"

There are two courts that handle almost all family law litigation in British Columbia: the Provincial (Family) Court and the Supreme Court. Each court has their own rules, their own forms and their own process.

You don't have to go to court, no matter how bad your problem is. The only times you ''must'' go to court are when:

If you don't have to deal with one or more of these issues, you can always try to negotiate a way of fixing the problem, to find a solution that you both agree with. Couples who need help negotiating sometimes hire someone else to help, someone who is usually a stranger to them, called a ''mediator''. Mediators help to guide the negotiation process and encourage people to see different ways of solving the problem.

Family law problems about children are:

Support means money that one person pays another to help with that person's expenses:

When a couple have property, sometimes including when only one person has property, they have to decide if and how that property <span class="noglossary">will</span> be shared between them. In family law, the property married spouses and unmarried spouses share is called ''family property''. Family property can include things like houses, bank accounts and cars. It can also include RRSPs and pensions.

#Unmarried Couples: An unmarried couple probably think of themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend. They may have lived together, but not for too long. Sometimes an unmarried couple involved in a family law problem <span class="noglossary">will</span> have been together only for a very short while... perhaps just long enough to make a baby.

#Married Spouses: Married spouses have been legally married, by a marriage commissioner or a religious official licenced to perform marriages, and their marriage has been registered with the government where they were married.

Other chapters from this resource that discuss common family law problems:

*[[Children in Family Law Matters]]

*[[Spousal Support]]

*[[Property & Debts in Family Law Matters]]

There are three levels of court in British Columbia: the Provincial Court, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal is the highest court in the province and the Provincial Court is the lowest. Most family law litigation happens in the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court.

The branch of the Provincial Court that deals with family law is called the Provincial (Family) Court. Other branches of the Provincial Court include the Provincial (Youth) Court and the Provincial (Small Claims) Court. Family court can deal with:

The Supreme Court can deal with all family law problems. On top of issues about the care of children, child support and spousal support, this court can also deal with:

This chart shows which court can deal with which problem:

Over time, the terms of an order may need to be changed. If there has been a serious change in your circumstances or in the circumstances of the children since an order was made, you can go back to court and ask that the order be changed to suit the new circumstances. This is called ''varying'' an order.

There are two kinds of law: laws made by the governments, called ''legislation'', ''statutes'' or ''acts''; and, laws made by the courts. Laws made by the courts are known as the ''common law'', ''precedent decisions'' or ''case law''. They come from the different law suits that the courts have heard over hundreds of years, and the decisions the courts made in those different court proceedings.

*Child Support > The Guidelines

There are three things that parents must decide when their relationship ends: where the children <span class="noglossary">will</span> mostly live; how the parents <span class="noglossary">will</span> make decisions about the important events in the children's lives; and, how much time each parent <span class="noglossary">will</span> have with the children.

Parental responsibilities are all about parenting. They include making decisions about where the children go to school, how they are treated when they get sick, whether they <span class="noglossary">will</span> play sports or take music lessons, and about the religion they <span class="noglossary">will</span> be taught. Parental responsibilities can be shared between guardians or divided between them, so that only one guardian can make decisions about a particular parenting issue. When more than one guardian share a parental responsibility, the guardians must try to work together to make decisions about that issue.

Parenting time and contact are the terms used to describe the schedule of the child's time between guardians and people who are not guardians.

Child support is normally paid by the parent who has the children for the least amount of time to the parent who has the children for the most amount of time. Child support is paid to help with the children's day-to-day living expenses, and covers a lot of things, from new clothes to school supplies to the children's share of the rent. Child support is not a fee a parent must pay to see the children. Child support has nothing to do with custody or with guardianship; it has nothing to do with access, parenting time or access, or contact; it has nothing to do with whether a parent is a good parent or a bad parent.

Where the children have extraordinary expenses, the parents contribute to those expense in proportion to their incomes. For example, if one parent earns $30,000 per year and the other earns $20,000, the first parent would have to pay 60% of an extraordinary expense and the other would have to pay 40%.

Spousal support is money paid by one spouse to the other, to help the other spouse meet his or her living expenses and sometimes to compensate that person for the financial consequences of decisions the spouses made during their relationship. Spousal support is not paid automatically just because a couple were in a married or unmarried spousal relationship; the person who needs support must prove that he or she is entitled to get support.

When a relationship was very long or the couple are older, spousal support can be paid for ever or until they both get pensions or government benefits like CPP. When the couple is younger, spousal support is usually only paid for a specific amount of time. This is because the person getting support has an obligation to try to become financially independent from the person paying support.

*The Advisory Guidelines is not a law and there is no rule saying that the Advisory Guidelines formulas must be used. Despite this, lawyers and the court use the Advisory Guidelines almost all the time when spousal support is going to be paid.

Only people who are married spouses or unmarried spouses can ask for spousal support. Married spouse must ask for spousal support within two years of their divorce. Unmarried spouses must ask for spousal support within two years of their separation.

Married spouses and unmarried spouses who have lived together for at least two years are each entitled to half of the ''family property'' when their relationships end. Family property includes:

Each spouse is entitled to keep his or her ''excluded property''. Excluded property includes:

Each spouse is also responsible for half of the ''family debt''. Family debt includes:

The spouses' right to a share in the family property and obligation to share in the family debt happens when the spouses separate. Separation doesn't always happen when someone moves out. Spouses can be separated while living together, as long as one of them has said the relationship is over and then behaved as if it was over, for example by stopping sleeping together or eating together and stopping doing chores for each other.

You do not need a legal document in order to separate, and you don't need to see a lawyer or a judge to separate. You just leave the relationship or announce that it's over and then behave like it's over. There is no such thing as a ''legal separation'' in British Columbia.

There are three reasons why a court <span class="noglossary">will</span> make a divorce order:

To get a divorce order, you have to start a court proceeding. You don't have to ask the court for anything else except a divorce. When a couple agrees to get a divorce, they can get a divorce using the do-it-yourself desk order process, and they won't have to go in front of a judge ever.

A family law agreement is a contract, like the contract you might have with your landlord, your employer, or the contract you might have if you lease a car. There are three kinds of agreement a couple can make in family law:

No matter what kind of family law agreement you have signed, you both expect that each of you <span class="noglossary">will</span> follow the agreement, and that the court <span class="noglossary">will</span> enforce the agreement if you don't follow the agreement. The court <span class="noglossary">will</span> generally respect an agreement that a couple willingly signed, as long as the agreement was fair and neither person misled the other person about something important, like money or property.

In Canada, men and women have exactly the same rights. There is no difference between the rights a man has and the rights that a woman has, whether they are married to each other or not. Men do not have the right to control women or tell them what they may and may not do, even if a couple are married spouses or unmarried spouses.

In Canada you must have a court order to divorce and legally end a marriage. Religious divorces are not recognized in Canada. The decisions of religious tribunals about how a separated couple <span class="noglossary">will</span> share their assets or manage the care and control of their children are not recognized in British Columbia.

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