Practice area
Family Law
A separation changes a lot more than your marital status.
Overview
Family cases are different because they don’t really end
If you have children with someone, you are going to be dealing with that person for years after the file closes. That’s worth remembering while the file is open.
And a separation raises everything at once. Where the kids live. Who decides on school and doctors. Who pays what. What happens to the house. Whose pension, whose debt, whose business. It’s a lot of decisions to make in the worst month of your life.
Our job is to take some of that off your plate: figure out what actually matters to you, explain what the law requires either way, and try to help you reach a resolution you can live with.
Separation and divorce
- Separation
- Simple and contested divorce
- Divorce applications
- Separation agreements
- Marriage contracts
- Negotiating the outstanding issues
- Varying or enforcing an existing agreement or order
Parenting
Decision-making responsibility and parenting time — what people still call custody and visitation.
- Decision-making responsibility
- Parenting time and schedules
- Holidays, school breaks and travel
- Relocation
- Communication between parents
- Changing an arrangement that no longer works
Most parenting disputes are not really about the schedule. Where that’s true, we’ll say so, because a court is unlikely to fix the underlying problem and it’s expensive to ask it to try.
Child support
Child support is the child’s right, not a bargaining chip. We advise on income determination, the guideline calculation, arrears, changes in income, and Section 7 expenses — including daycare, orthodontics and activities, the issues people argue about most.
When someone’s income is hard to pin down, whether self-employed, cash or corporate, that becomes the main issue in the case, and it’s a document exercise.
Spousal support
Spousal support doesn’t automatically follow from a relationship ending. Entitlement, amount and duration all depend on the circumstances — the length of the relationship, the roles each of you played, who stepped back from a career, and what each of you can earn now. We represent both people seeking support and those responding to a claim.
Property and equalization
For married spouses, separation means identifying and valuing what each of you brought in and what you built, then calculating net family property and equalization. For common-law partners, the property rules are significantly different, which surprises many people after a fifteen-year relationship.
- The matrimonial home
- Bank and investment accounts
- Pensions
- Vehicles
- Businesses and professional practices
- Debts
- Excluded property, gifts and inheritances
- Property owned before the marriage
- The equalization calculation
Financial disclosure
Most support and property cases hinge on disclosure. We help you prepare a financial statement that will hold up, and we go after the other side’s when it’s incomplete. If you’re the one being asked, the advice is usually the same: produce it properly and early. Fighting disclosure costs more than disclosure.
Family court
Where agreement isn’t possible: applications and answers, motions, case and settlement conferences, and trial management and trial. Not every separation needs to go there. Where a reasonable agreement is available, we’ll work toward one. Where it isn’t, we’ll prepare the case properly.
General information only, not legal advice. For advice about your situation, book a consultation.
Book a consultation
Talk to us about your family matter.
Tell us briefly what is happening. We will check for conflicts and respond promptly.
- shajjan@shajjanlaw.ca
- Consultations by appointment, in person or by video.