Selling a home requires decisions about price, timing, repairs, offers and closing. During a separation, there is another layer. Before the property is listed, the spouses may also need to decide whether either of them wants to keep it, whether a buyout is financially possible, who will pay the carrying costs while the property is on the market and what will happen to the sale proceeds when the transaction closes. For married spouses in Ontario, there are also special legal p

When one spouse wants to keep the family home after separation, agreeing on who gets the property is only part of the process. The spouse keeping the home may also need to qualify for financing in their own name, pay the other spouse the agreed amount, deal with the existing mortgage and complete a legal transfer of title. That brings two processes together: the family-law settlement and the real-estate refinance or transfer. The buyout has to work both legally and financiall

Spousal support may be based on the circumstances that existed when a separation agreement was signed or a court order was made. Those circumstances can change. A payor may retire. Someone may lose their job. A recipient may remarry or begin living with a new partner. Each of these events can raise legitimate questions about whether spousal support should continue at the same amount—or continue at all. But none of them creates one automatic result under Ontario family law. Th

Spousal support may have been reasonable when an agreement or court order was made. Years later, the financial circumstances of one or both former spouses may look very different. A job may be lost. Someone may retire. Income may increase or decrease substantially. Health may affect a person's ability to work. But a change in circumstances does not automatically mean spousal support changes too. Where someone is asking a court to vary an existing spousal-support order, the fi

Signing a separation agreement can bring much-needed certainty to a difficult period. But circumstances do not always stay the same. A spouse may lose a job, retire, experience a significant change in income or enter a new relationship. When that happens, one of the first questions may be whether the spousal support terms in the agreement can change too. The answer depends on what the agreement says, how the support obligation is structured and what legal process applies to c