Difference between revisions of "Terminology"

;Maintenance:In family law, usually refers to payments made by one party to the other to defray that person's daily living expenses or the living expenses of the a child; also known as palimony, alimony or support. See "Child Support" and "Spousal Support."

;Marriage:A legal and emotional relationship between two people, solemnized by a marriage commissioner or licenced religious official, which gives rise to certain mutual rights, benefits and obligations. See also “Conjugal Rights,” “Consortium” and “Validity of Marriage.”

;Marriage Act:A provincial law that governs the ability to marry and the formalities of the marriage ceremony.

;Marriage-Like Relationship:In family law, a quality of an opposite- or same-sex couple's relationship connoting their committment to each other, their self-identification as a couple and other people's perception of them as a couple; a legal requirement for a couple to be considered common-law spouses. See “Cohabitation,” “Marriage” and "Spouse."

;Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act:A federal law which describes the degrees of relatedness within which persons cannot marry.

;Master:A provincially-appointed judicial official with limited authority and jurisdiction to deal with certain matters, including the hearing of interim applications, the taxation of lawyers' bills and the settling of Bills of Cost. See "Interim Application," “Judge” and “Jurisdiction.”

;Material:In law, relevant, important. A material fact is a fact relevant to a claim. See “Claim” and “Fact.”

;Matrimonial Home:In family law, the dwelling occupied by a family as their primary residence. As with all family assets, each spouse has an entitlement at law to a share of the matrimonial home, regardless of whose name appears on the title. See “Family Assets” and “Real Property.”

;Matrimonial Property:See "Family Assets."

;Memorandum of Understanding:A document setting out the bare bones of an agreement or settlement reached between two or more people, often used as a guide to the terms of a final agreement or settlement. See “Family Law Agreements.”

;Minor:See "Disability" and "Infant."

;Minutes of Settlement:A document setting out the bare bones of an agreement or settlement reached between two or more litigants, produced after negotiations and signed by the parties and their lawyers. Minutes of Settlement are normally used as the foundation of a final order, and are often attached to that order as a schedule. See “Family Law Agreements,” "Litigant" and "Orders."

;Miscarriage of Justice:A term referring to a demonstrable and traumatic failure of the justice system in a particular case.

;Misrepresentation:Acts or words tending to give a misleading or false impression as to the true state of affairs. See "Bad Faith."

;Mistake:In contract law, an unintentional act or failure to act arising from a misunderstanding of the true state of affairs, from ignorance, or from an error not intentionally made in bad faith; an unintentional misunderstanding as to the nature of a term agreed to in a contract. See "Bad Faith" and "Good Faith."

;Mortgage:The conditional transfer of the title to a piece of property to someone else in return for loaned money, while retaining possession of the property. The party to whom the title is given, the mortgagee, usually a bank, is allowed to register the title of the property in his or her name if the person making the payments on the loan, the mortgagor, fails to make those payments. See “Encumbrance” and “Real Property.”

;Motion:In law, an application to the court for an order, usually brought after the commencement of a legal action but before its conclusion following trial or by settlement before trial. See "Action," “Application,” “Interim Application” and “Order.”