In Ontario, property acquired during a marriage must be split equally when a marriage ends for any reason. This can include your home, car, business, furniture, pension and money.
If you brought property into your marriage, any increase in value during your relationship is usually divided equally. This applies to the matrimonial home where you lived with your spouse.
You must share the full value of the matrimonial home, however, even if one of you owned the home before got marriage, or you received it as a gift, or you inherited it.
In the mean time, there are some exceptions that allow one spouse to keep property they own. This is called excluded property. Examples of excluded property include:
- property (other than the family home) that you inherited or were gifted from someone other than your spouse during your marriage.
- money you received from an insurance company because someone died.
- money you received or have a right to as a result of a personal injury, like a car accident.
- property that you and your spouse have agreed to exclude through an agreement.
Again, if the family home was gifted or received as an inheritance, it does not count as excluded property. It must be divided equally unless you and your spouse agree to a different split, or the court unequally divides it under some limited circumstances.
The court can only divide property differently in very special situations and if a 50-50 (equal) split would be extremely unfair to one of you.
Lastly, if there is an agreement (also called domestic contract) where you and your spouse have set out how to divide property, the agreement is deemed valid and should be followed, unless it is varied or set aside by the court. Talk to us for more advice.