Family and Divorce Lawyers in Ottawa

When is it reasonable to impute income to a payor of child support? In Tillmanns v. Tillmanns, the mother sought an order against her ex when he was laid off from his job and unable to continue paying the agreed-upon amount of child support. Under the Child Support Guidelines, a court has the discretion to…

In order to avoid the delays inherent in the court process, and the possibility that the judge hearing the issues might not possess any specialised knowledge of family law, parties can choose to hire an arbitrator instead. An arbitration hearing may be conducted much like a traditional judicial hearing, except that the arbitrator’s time is…

A recent Ottawa family law case examines when foreign divorces will be recognized by the Ontario courts. In Kadri v. Kadri, the parties were married in Lebanon in 1988 and went on to have 3 children (who are now adults). Although they resided in several different countries during their marriage, they lived in Lebanon from…

A Divisional Court case from earlier this year considered whether a common law spouse can be considered a dependent entitled to support under the Succession Law Reform Act. A common law spouse doesn’t have the same property rights as a married spouse. In Ontario, when a married individual dies, their spouse has the right to…

The Child Support Guidelines require a payor parent to pay his or her proportionate share of extraordinary expenses. One of these expenses is postsecondary education. The guidelines also require that the court consider the means of the child to contribute towards the costs of his or her education, as well as the reasonable expectations of…

Many family law clients and lawyers bemoan the lack of assistance provided by FRO in enforcing support orders. As a recipient of support, what can you do to help yourself and assist the process? Delays There are significant delays between the time an order is issued and when FRO actually receives the order to start…